


Coronation of the Black Queen

by Mina_Harry3



Series: Black Queen [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Child Abandonment, Child Abuse, Dark Magic, Familiars, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Not Canon Compliant, Past Child Abuse, Prophecy, Rituals, Runes, Sacrifice, Voodoo, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-16 11:53:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 26
Words: 166,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19317640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mina_Harry3/pseuds/Mina_Harry3
Summary: Hi there my loves, and thanks to SilentlyWatches for letting me share this with you all!!Sorry for the wait since the last book, I'm in the middle of exams so it's pretty busy here... I'll post the first few chapters tonight and maybe one in the morning if you're lucky, but if you don't hear from me for a few days then I'm sorry and I promise I haven't completely died!Anyway, thanks for all your lovely comments and, as always, happy reading!!





	1. Rearranging the Board

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there my loves, and thanks to SilentlyWatches for letting me share this with you all!! 
> 
> Sorry for the wait since the last book, I'm in the middle of exams so it's pretty busy here... I'll post the first few chapters tonight and maybe one in the morning if you're lucky, but if you don't hear from me for a few days then I'm sorry and I promise I haven't completely died! 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for all your lovely comments and, as always, happy reading!!

**During the course of** _**Black Princess Ascendant** _ **, I made all of you a promise. I'm sorry, but I'm going to break that promise during this book. The only reason I'm doing so is because, well… if I can do it right, it's going to be just that awesome.**

**Anyway, onto the story.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did it take Voldemort a full year to question Ollivander about what happened between his and Harry's wand, even though he could have Obliviated the wand-maker if he didn't want that 'conversation' to reveal his return, or even just disguised himself as someone else and come up with a lie to conceal the real reason for his interest? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 1  
** **Rearranging the Board**

A fire burned high from the center of the white marble cube, and the wizard knelt before the icon, his colorless robe pooling as it met the stone floor. "Your follower comes at Your call, Your Holiness."

Footsteps sounded from behind the cube. The wizard glanced up just long enough to see a golden man step into view, a long leather skirt the only clothing the figure possessed, before retuning his eyes to the flame. The figure strode next to him and turned to regard the fire, as well. "Our servant," the golden man finally said, "Our ever-faithful warrior-priest. We have a task for you."

"You need only tell this one what You desire, and it shall be done."

"It is not a pleasant task, but it is one that needs doing." At those words, the wizard took a breath and squeezed his eyes closed. He knew what his master wished of him now. He would have to harden his heart yet again. "Go to the island kingdom sitting in the Western Sea, the throne of a crumbled empire. There you will find a black witch, a child still growing into her full evil. Her god has grand plans for her, plans that We will not allow to continue to fruition."

"Do You wish this one to pull her from the path she walks?" he asked weakly, hoping against hope that his master would choose to show mercy on him and not force him to kill yet again.

"No. Find her and visit upon her Our power and Our wrath. The Darkness shall not be permitted to gain a stronger foothold in the West. This girl is in a position to restore the forgotten practices, and if she succeeds the Darkness would fall upon the ignorant men and raise from them an army. That must not happen."

The fire flickered and swelled, for just an instant showing an image formed from flame and ember. Not enough for him to be able to pick the black witch out of a crowd, but just enough that if he got close, he should be able to recognize her. And if he were that close, there would be nothing she could do to stop him.

Closing his brown eyes, the wizard shoved his regret aside; when they opened again, they were hard and cold. "This one is Your rod and Your sword. If you desire the witch to die, die she will."

* * *

The emerald flames of the Floo spewed from the fireplace as Luna walked out. Turning her head this way and that, she looked over the elaborate family tree that covered three of the four walls of the Black family's drawing room. She had not had a chance to examine the entire thing when she was here the previous summer, and then things had gotten so busy that she was unable to arrange another trip. Jen probably wouldn't mind too much if she wandered around for a bit, would she?

The lone door in the room creaked open, and a youthful wizard with black hair and wearing rich robes stepped inside. "Miss Lovegood," he said, grey eyes focused on her as though trying to peer through her for a moment before his expression softened. "Good afternoon. I didn't realize Jen had invited you over today."

"And a good afternoon to you, too, Lord Black," she replied with a bright smile and a tiny curtsey, which he accepted with a weak smile. The man looked wearier and more worn out than he had when she first met him at Ottery St. Catchpole's wassailing the previous Christmas Eve, but that was only to be expected, she supposed. Finding out that his heiress had gone toe-to-toe with You-Know-Who in single combat, even if that revelation had taken place eight days earlier, was sure to leave him with sleepless nights. "She actually didn't, but she didn't reply to the letter I sent her a few days ago, either. I just wanted to see how she was doing."

"Well, I don't know why she wouldn't," Lord Black said after a moment of thought. "She's upstairs. I'll let her know you're here—"

"No need for that, Sirius. I'm down already."

He turned his head and backed out of the door to allow Jen to step through into the room. Or stagger, rather; the black-haired girl looked more than a little unsteady on her feet, and once she was close enough to set her book on the end table to one side of the sofa, she let herself fall onto the cushions. "Jen, what happened to you?" Luna demanded, rushing forward and joining the older girl on the couch. She had never seen her girlfriend look this drained before; it was almost as if she were trying to recover from a long illness, but there was no way she could be the case. She had been just fine a week ago.

Neither girl noticed the wizard quietly closing the door with a warm grin.

Jen smiled, the skin around her purple eyes crinkling as she reached up to tangle one hand in Luna's blonde hair. "It's nothing. I spent the last couple of days with some old friends I know in the Muggle world, and things got a little out of hand, that's all. Nothing to worry your pretty little head over."

An amused roll of her eyes told Jen exactly what she thought about that. The heiress tended to be condescending like this either when she legitimately did not think much of the person she was talking to or when she was just teasing, and it had taken Luna a while over the first year of their friendship to learn which was which. She also could not help her blush as Jen tugged her hand until she lay across the older girl's lap looking up at her. Luna knew she was not the most attractive girl in the world, or even in their year at Hogwarts; her hair was straight and lifeless, her eyes were too big for her face, and even if she were a physical beauty, mentioning the strange creatures she had seen all her life was sure to run people off. Still, for some reason it was she whom Jen fancied.

She also made a mental note to avoid any Muggle's invitation to a summer solstice party. She knew exactly how much stamina Jen had – a blush lit up her cheeks as her brain helpfully fed her relevant memories of an entirely different kind of  _stamina_  – and anything that could wear down the black-haired girl like this would probably kill her.

"As for your letter…" Jen frowned and shook her head. "I don't think I ever got it, but Sirius did tighten down the wards a couple of days ago. That might have thrown the owl off. Why? What did it say?"

Luna shrugged. "I just wanted to hear if you were all right after everything that happened. When you left Tracey and me on the roof, we thought you were going to find the second-years and lead them back to the castle, not go charging against You-Know-Who alongside Potter. Tracey was pretty upset at you for that one when we heard what had happened, by the way." Her frustration leaking out, she huffed. "If your half-brother got to bring his friends along, there was no reason you shouldn't have let us come, too."

"Other than the fact that two of his friends were injured in that fight and one of them had to be carted off to St. Mungo's?" the darker witch asked in a dry voice. "Besides, I didn't care if  _they_  were collateral damage. You and Tracey are far more valuable.

"But I'm not the one I'm worried about." Jen's voice softened as the hand running through Luna's hair slowed. "Since Sirius brought me home when he left rather than let me stick around Hogwarts for the last few days of term, I never heard what's happening with Padma. All I know is that she's out of the country; I trained Loki not to leave Britain on a mail run unless I specifically tell him to do so, and he came back with the letter I tried to send her."

"She wasn't doing so good on the Express. Not a surprise, really; she's concerned about her sister."

Jen nodded in understanding. During the same attack on Hogsmeade when she had fought You-Know-Who, the Death Eaters had struck first with a wave of who later were revealed to be Imperiused Muggles and then a second wave of werewolves. Though that Saturday was a new moon, they had drunk a concoction the  _Daily Prophet_  had taken to calling Wolfsboon Potion that somehow let them transform despite it not being otherwise possible. No one had any idea what that meant for all the people who had been bitten by the changed werewolves, unfortunately; were those people now werewolves themselves, or was the artificial transformation too little to effectively Turn people? "I guess the Patils didn't want to risk giving the Ministry Parvati's name in case she was infected?"

"Pretty much. Padma told us they'd be staying in India for the summer, and if the worst happened, Parvati would stay there. Less restrictive rules due to international law or something. She didn't go into too much detail, and none of us wanted to push on it."

"India's a member of the Asian Conglomerate," Jen explained, "and they give greater rights to non-human beings than countries in the ICW do. Unlike in Europe, there are enough non-humans in Asia that if they banded together, they would easily outnumber witches and wizards, so the different governments have good reason not to be too harsh with them."

Luna had not known about that – her father's expeditions had all stayed within Europe – and she pondered the ramifications while Jen resumed playing with her hair and opened the book back up. "What's it about?" she eventually asked, flicking her eyes at the tome when the heiress looked at her curiously.

"Supposedly, it's a translation of a journal written by a knight sworn in service to Morgan le Fay." With a shrug, Jen added, "Well, technically he swore his allegiance to her husband, King Urience, but since she ruled in his stead after Urience died of a 'mysterious illness', he was her knight, and I think he carried a bit of a torch for her. I'm not sure how much of this is true, but even as a work of fiction, it definitely makes some interesting claims. Shines a bit of a different light on her."

Humming lightly, the blonde rubbed her head against Jen's belly in a silent request for more information. Morgan le Fay was not a popular figure, mostly because she was known primarily for positioning herself against Merlin, whom magical Britain revered, but now Luna found herself curious.

"Well, for one it claims that Morgan wasn't actually Arthur's half-sister. She was Gorlois's niece that he took in when her parents died, and if she and Igraine weren't related, then neither were she and Arthur. Of course, that might just be a lie meant to sanitize her bearing Mordred," Jen added with a shrug. "I'm not really sure on that. It isn't like she's made out to be a misunderstood witch doing the best she could under trying circumstances or something. The author acknowledges that she was the greatest and most fearsome Dark Lady of her day. What she did to poor Sir Percival…"

"I don't think I'd enjoy this book, then. It's hard to sympathize with someone who's unrepentantly evil like that," Luna said with a shudder.

Jen grunted noncommittally. "Different times, I guess. Arthur and Merlin weren't so great, either, if we're being totally honest. This isn't the first place I've read where, upon hearing that a child born in May would be his downfall, Arthur gave a royal command that all noble children born that month were to be loaded onto a ship and set out to sea with the explicit intent of them all dying of dehydration and exposure. When the ship crashed into some rocks and sank, luck was the only reason Mordred survived, and in his shoes I'd be hard-pressed not to hate the man, too."

She had nothing to say in response to that, instead letting her eyes drift closed while Jen continued her petting. Several minutes passed before she asked the question that had plagued her since the battle at Hogsmeade. "Jen? Could you teach us how to fight like you do?"

The hand running gently through her hair stilled. "Why would you ask something like that? You aren't planning on doing something foolish, are you?" Jen asked in strangled voice.

Eyes opening again, Luna looked up at her girlfriend. "Do you have any idea how terrifying it was to hear that you fought You-Know-Who alone, without any of us there to help you? I can't contribute anything like that now, but if I could in the future, if I could back you up? Because I know you're not going to let this go. You may not go out looking for him, but if you ever see him again, you won't let him walk away. You're just not that sort of person."

Jen sighed, sticking a bookmark between the pages, and Luna felt her body become weightless before it drifted up so she was sitting in Jen's lap. The older witch wrapped her arms around the blonde's waist and nuzzled into her neck. "Don't take this the wrong way, Luna," Jen mumbled, "but fighting at that level requires a certain amount of raw  _power_. I have it. Dora has it. If Flitwick doesn't, he's extremely close and could probably make up the difference with skill and experience."

"But I don't?" she guessed, her voice distant. It was hard, sometimes, to be reminded of all the different hurdles that threatened to separate her from the girl she loved. Their social strata, their political views, and now even their magic? Some days she wondered if it would be easier on both of them for them to end their relationship, and those days were when she clung tightest to the other witch.

"Few do," Jen hedged. "Even though our family includes Dora and me, we're the only ones who can fight at that level. Sirius is closest, but not close enough to make a difference. I also have a talent for combat; both of my parents are known for their skills with a wand, though obviously my mother is far, far better at it, and thankfully it was her I inherited the majority of my own talent from."

Luna rolled her eyes. For all that she was the forbidden love-child of James Potter and Bellatrix Lestrange, Jen rarely said anything truly negative about her mother. Condemning the woman's crimes, yes; acknowledging her insanity, absolutely; but actually denouncing her as a person? No. But, the blonde supposed, it was hard to fault someone for loving her mother, even if Jen was extremely vocal about her distaste for the father with whom she had clashed so often.

"And even if you did have the strength and the talent, you don't have the temperament. Dora and I weren't trying to capture You-Know-Who, nor was he flinging prank spells at us in return. You can't get into a fight with a Dark Lord and hesitate out of fear of hurting someone. Every strike needs to be meant to kill." The arms around her tightened. "You don't have a ruthless bone in your body. That rather than the power gap is actually the real reason I don't want you anywhere near my next fight with him."

"But there has to be something I can do, even if I'm not fighting myself." Luna thought furiously for a few seconds. "What about… What if I sent out other things to fight for me? Proxies, like you and Tracey are always talking about?"

Jen chuckled. "In this context, I think you mean minions. Unless you plan on using mind magics on someone to make them fight in your stead?" The blonde hastily shook her head. "It could work; I use conjuration a lot in my practice duels with Flitwick to distract him while I'm getting in a better position to attack."

"Yes, that's perfect. What about the free transfigurations you do? The one where you don't need a specific spell?"

A suspicious expression grew on Jen's face, and the girl looked at her curiously. "What are you planning?"

"I'm not planning anything." No, not planning, not while she still did not know how to cast that spell. Until she did, she was just imagining swarms of Nargles buzzing around and warding off the Death Eaters, none of them willing to risk the anger of the gigantic wasps.

"Right." Eyeing her for another moment, Jen finally said, "I don't know if I can teach you how I cast that spell. I've never done it with a wand. You'd be better off asking McGonagall for help. She's the one with the Mastery in Transfiguration, after all."

"It can't be that different, though, can it? It's still magic, after all," she whined. Much like Babbling, McGonagall refused to teach students spells beyond their level. It was a warning she had given the assembled Ravenclaws and Slytherins in their first lesson with her, as they were the students most likely to push the envelope.

"Maybe." Luna opened her mouth to argue, but Jen lifted a finger in a bid for silence. "That's all I'm going to say on this subject right now. I need to think about how I could possibly translate what I do into something a wand could replicate. Give me till we go back to Hogwarts, and I should have a more definite answer."

"Fine." She settled back down, her cheek braced against Jen's shoulder, and closed her eyes again. It might not be learning new and exciting magic, but just spending time cuddled up with her girlfriend was a pretty nice second place.

* * *

"But Master, I don't understand. Why are You leaving us?"

The slits that made up Voldemort's nose flared as he took a calming breath. There were many benefits to having one's right hand be obsessively devoted the way Bellatrix was: perfect obedience, a refusal to surrender no matter the circumstances, the initiative to create and execute tactics in an attempt to please him. Unfortunately, at times the downsides made him doubt the wisdom of relying so much on the insane witch. "The actions of your spawn have made me curious about something. I do not have the time to waste if I want to get to the bottom of this mystery, and that requires going to the Continent."

"She is no child of mine!" Bellatrix protested. "Not one of my blood would ever turn their wand against You!"

He rolled his eyes at the familiar rejection. Bellatrix and Rodolphus could deny that she had ever been pregnant all they wanted, for his own experience with the Blacks' scion proved that House's claim to be true. It would be just like Bellatrix to hide her pregnancy so she might surprise him, and the girl's appearance, her cruelty, her power; those were all Bellatrix's. It was like seeing the dark witch in her prime once again. And yet the differences were even more worrying: Bellatrix had never shown a bent for necromancy or Legilimency, and the strange spell Black had cast upon him—

As if summoned by his thoughts, lines of red-hot pain ripped through his body with all the fury of the Cruciatus, and the fingers that rested against the wall of his quarters clenched as they tried to dig into the wood. He had no idea what the girl had done to him, but ever since the solstice, when he had fallen victim to the strange sickness that plagued him on that same day every year starting the summer before his seventh year at Hogwarts, it seemed intent on driving him mad from pain. Part of him hoped that Black was afflicted just as terribly as he was, but the rest of his mind was certain that the backlash had spared her the worst effects of the spell.

His deplorable state had something to do with his recurrent illness. He was sure of it!

The pain slipped away as quickly as it had come, following the same tracks as the ethereal chains Black had wrapped around him, and he forced his taut muscles to relax. If there were any Death Eaters to whom he could reveal his weakness, his right and left hands were assuredly the safest. And yet, he knew he would never do so.  _'Safest'_  was by no means the same as  _'safe'_ , and while Bellatrix would never try to take advantage of his condition, the other wizard in the room with them was a different story entirely.

"If you are intent on traveling, my lord, then we will endeavor to please you with our successes upon your return," Lucius said in a silky voice. Listening to his apparent obsequiousness, Voldemort could almost forget that the Malfoy patriarch had thrown away one of his Horcruxes in a fruitless attempt to satisfy a personal grudge against the Weasley family. "Are there any objectives in particular you wish us to accomplish during your absence?"

A flick of Voldemort's wand had a number of robes fly into a trunk, which shut itself and shrank as soon as it was full. "Keep up the strikes on the Muggle world," he eventually ordered. "That will keep the Obliviators busy and the Ministry too preoccupied hiding our existence from the Muggle cattle to chase after you. Make sure you are not so arrogant as to start any protracted engagements with the DMLE. Any battle they win will bolster their spirits, and that will encourage them to act more aggressively. I want their morale to be sapped, the public to lose confidence in them."

"But… My lord…" He turned to face Lucius, who frowned as though determining the best way to voice his objection. "You have previously said that you do not care if the common masses regard you with reverence or fear. If you wish us to attract the public to our cause, we will have a long way to go to compensate for your attack on Diagon Alley last Christmas, and then Bellatrix's a couple of weeks ago."

"We don't need support from some worthless peasants!" Bellatrix screeched. Multicolored sparks spurted from the wand she had stuck in her messy tresses as the focus reacted to her rage, and she likely would have whipped it out to curse her brother-in-law if the Dark Lord had not grabbed her wrist.

"Stand down, both of you," he ordered, fixing the two bickering adults with a ruby glare. Lucius nodded, no expression at all on his face, and Bellatrix muttered something incomprehensible under her breath before letting her arms hang loose at her sides. "If the two of you cannot keep yourselves under control here in my presence, perhaps I should find someone else to serve as my lieutenants." Before either of them could protest that declaration, he sliced the air with his hand, stilling their voices as effectively as a Silencing Charm. "I care not for excuses. Should I return and find that our cause has fallen apart because you squabbled like children, I will be most wroth and will make you aware of my displeasure in full. Do you understand?"

"Of course, my lord."

"Yes, Master."

"Good." He turned away and shook his head in irritation. Had he known that managing the various personalities he had chosen to serve as his army against the Ministry of Magic would be this difficult, he would have found some other cause to champion rather than throwing his lot in with the blood purists. Sadly, those same bigots were the ones who possessed the gold and the connections he needed, and it was much too late now to assemble another group of servants with which to take over the country. "I should be gone no longer than eighteen months, less depending on how easily I find the information I will be searching for. Do try not to ruin everything in the meantime."

Lucius cleared his throat. "My lord, what about the Dementors? Will you take them with you or leave them here? I ask only because many of the men are… uncomfortable around them, and as you are the only one they seem to understand, should they run amok, there is little we can do to prevent them from killing off a large portion of our forces."

Crossing his arms, Voldemort paused in his preparations to think over that question. His primary goal at the moment was to discover just what it was the Black girl had done to him; the last time he had been struck by an unknown curse, he had ignored it and subsequently spent the next thirteen years as a near-impotent wraith. Not an experience he was eager to repeat. If he wished to track down the contacts he had made in the Continent and in Asia back when he spent a decade wandering the world as Tom Riddle, he would need to move quickly, and bringing a few dozen Dementors along with him was not conducive to speed.

On the other hand, leaving the Dementors behind did pose a problem. He was not sure how long the demons would obey the orders he gave them, so if they grew bored before he returned, they could all too easily turn on his Death Eaters. Placing the Crown of Demens, the artefact he had stolen from the warden of Azkaban in order to communicate with them, in the hands of one of his followers would prevent that from becoming an issue, but then he would be giving someone he did not completely trust an all but unstoppable force and hoping that that person would not decide to depose him. The leaders of his army were Slytherins, and having been one himself he knew without a shadow of a doubt that they would turn on him the instant they sensed weakness.

He strode across the room to a cabinet warded to prevent anyone but him from accessing it, and opening the door, he pulled out out a large crown forged from some dark grey metal and set it upon his bald head. Closing his eyes, he let his mind rise until it made contact with a vast entity, the singular consciousness that drove all seventy-nine Dementors. It was a trick he had discovered while experimenting with the Crown, and it certainly made giving them orders easier than having to track down one of the spirits.  _Can you hear me?_ , he thought at the disembodied intellect.

 _"We hear the Crowned,"_  answered an eerie voice in his head, screeching and warbling in such a way that it was obvious it was nothing that had ever come from a human throat.

Voldemort nodded, not surprised by the short response. The Dementors were terrifying monsters and extremely effective killers, but they made pathetic conversationalists.  _If I give you an order, how long will you follow it until you decide to do something else?_

_"The Crowned commands. We obey."_

_Obviously, but for how long?_

_"We obey."_

Shaking his head, he realized he was not going to get anything more out of them. It looked like he was just going to have to take the risk.  _All of you are to patrol the locations where you are currently stationed. Administer the Kiss to any intruders, but do not harm my followers. Do you understand?_

_"Guard. Consume unfamiliar. Ignore familiar."_

He pulled the heavy Crown off his brow and tossed it with the rest of the shrunken luggage that waited for him to pack up. "The Dementors will not leave their posts, so do not expect them to accompany you in battle, but tell the men that they need not fear being Kissed."

"I will forward that news," agreed Lucius. He waited only for a wave of Voldemort's hand before he sketched the Dark Lord a short bow and departed.

"Master, surely You are not planning to leave on Your own?" Bellatrix pleaded, creeping up and twitching her fingers as though fighting the impulse to grab hold of his robes. "Please allow some of us to accompany You. Me and Rabastan and Barty, at the very least."

"No, Bellatrix. I will move more swiftly alone. You are to stay here and lead our forces in my absence." The crazy witch did not look particularly enthused about that, and after a moment of thought, he added in a quieter voice, "I do not know how much I can trust Lucius, but he is far too valuable simply to eliminate. I need you to keep an eye on him while I'm gone. Do not do anything to him, but keep records of everything he does. If indeed he is untrustworthy, I wish to deal out his punishment myself."

Bellatrix's eyes shined, and he could practically see her unstable mind begin to conjure up all sorts of paranoid conspiracies regarding the Head of House Malfoy. It was probably not fair to cast Lucius as a traitor, especially since Voldemort was sure that the blond was no less untrustworthy than any other sane Death Eater, but this fake mission should keep Bellatrix from causing too much trouble while he was not there to temper her excesses, not to mention it would prevent her from deciding to follow him and thereby go on a murder spree throughout Europe. Subtle she was not.

Should he warn Lucius of just what he had done? He considered but quickly rejected that concern. As his left hand, Lucius should be good enough to deal with Bellatrix in a frenzy, or at least enough to get away from her more or less intact.

"Remember, don't kill him," he reminded the woman when he saw that she was edging from simply crazed to outright blood-thirsty. "If you do, I will punish you twice as much as I would have him."

"You have nothing to worry about. I will keep an eye on the traitor. He won't make a single move against You while I'm here." The witch shot him a feral smile before turning away to stalk her newest prey.

Finally alone again, Voldemort rubbed his fingertips against his temples. This search really could not have come at a more opportune time. After dealing with insane soldiers, uncivilized trolls, whiny werewolves, and incompetent recruits for the last year, he really needed a vacation.

* * *

**bissek was the one who came up with the name Wolfsboon Potion for the potion Voldemort gave his wolves; I was calling it Moondrop Potion in my head, but this name is funnier, so I… kinda stole it.**

**As you might be able to tell, I've been rereading** _**Le Morte d'Arthur** _ **, albeit slowly. It's a big book, and Malory's writing style, or at least what's in my translation, is bad enough that it makes** _**My Immortal** _ **look decent. It also reminded me that Mordred was the son of Morgause, not Morgan, but I have plans for that, so that conflation is going to stick around. Sadly enough, I didn't make up the tale about Arthur going all Herod on a bunch of kids; that's an actual segment from the legend, and it among other scenes makes it clear that neither Arthur nor Merlin were actually good people.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	2. We'll Always Have Sofia

**"What promise?":**  I only made a few promises last book, so if you can't figure out which it was, I guess you'll just have to wait to see how it all goes, won't you?

 **"Does Voldemort not know he's a black wizard?":**  He knows he can use black magic, but no, he doesn't know all the details like Jen does. Part of that is him being much like Dumbledore in believing that the Dark and Light Powers are just myths, but Nyarlathotep also takes a much more hands-off approach than the other Powers do, so he doesn't have any proof that the Powers are real. And he said he would be gone for eighteen months  _at most_. Not one is saying he won't find out what he needs to know before then.

And in a similar vein…

" **Why is the white wizard moving against Jen and not Voldemort?":**  It could be said that since Jen knows the truth of her nature while Voldemort is not, she is a greater threat. It could also be said that since Voldemort has yet to learn of the war between Light and Dark Powers, he is protected by the terms of the Pact just as the newly inducted white witch was in  _Ascendant_. The more worrying reason, though, is that whereas Voldemort has set himself up as an enemy of the common people, Jen's actions make her look like a hero. That status, combined with her future political power, means that if she introduces the common wizard to the dark side of the Powers' pantheon, particularly to her own patron, some people could be swayed to worshipping Death. More worshippers means more people he could send Jen to who would be willing to serve him, and that means more black mages to fight against the Light Powers and their avatars. It's why the Light Power was worried that "this girl is in a position to restore the forgotten practices".

 **Isa Lumitus:**  I didn't realize until you mentioned it that the gold figure last chapter could be compared to Scion, so no, it wasn't a  _Worm_  reference. This is another (and bigger) asshole.

**A little more interlude-y than normal, but several people have asked time and time again for a certain character to make a reappearance; this chapter is for them. And, you know, plot development stuff or something.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Viktor Krum show up at Bill and Fleur's wedding to introduce Harry to the symbol of the Deathly Hallows, even though there was really no reason for Fleur to invite someone we have no indication she knew outside of being another Triwizard champion to such a personal event? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 2  
** **We'll Always Have Sofia**

Pulling his eyes away from one clock, Viktor Krum instead glanced through the window at the receiving room of the travel agency. The letter her raven had delivered said that she would be here on the thirtieth at eleven sharp, didn't it? He resisted the urge to pull the letter, well-worn from the constant unfolding and refolding it had gone through in the last month, from his pocket. Partly it was because by now he could recite it word for word, but it was also partly because he still clearly remembered how Petar had laughed upon learning how much he looked at it.

And that his laughter had only gotten louder when Viktor tried to defend himself.

He was allowed to be eager to see her, though! Throughout the last year, he had only exchanged a few letters with the young woman he was waiting so impatiently for – not that he begrudged her the long delays, not while she was going through her Competency year – and today was the first time he would again be able to lay eyes on her. He knew the way he was acting was unusual, some might even say disturbing, but… Well, he had given dating other women a chance after he returned to Bulgaria, slept with most of them, even at one point shared his bed with identical triplets. None of them intrigued him anything close to the same as the girl who first courted him through combat.

The hands of the clocks around him shifted ahead to mark the top of the hour, and a crowd of people popped into existence. Rather than try to barge into the room where they stood, however, he hung back. There was only one exit, and at the Customs agents' commands, the visitors were already forming themselves into a line so they and their bags could be checked before officially entering the country. All he had to do was keep an eye on the line, and—

And there she was.

In the middle of the line stood a dark-haired girl, a rucksack thrown over her shoulder and casually dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt that declared her a fan of some English band or another. Looking at her somewhat impartially, or at the very least from a distance, it was hard to remember that she had yet to turn sixteen. Someone who did not know her would assume she was in her very late teens, something Viktor was immensely thankful for; people would not give him grief for courting someone his own age, and since some of his friends suspected that he had already slept with her, it was important that she could convince anyone who wondered about it that she had been over the age of consent at the time. It would probably come out eventually, all bad news did, but the longer he could delay it, the better. People – understandably! – took a dim view of an eighteen-year-old man having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl, even if she had been the one to initiate it.

His feet were well into their tapping when the young woman left the line, purple eyes sliding over the crowd as though searching for someone. If that were not his cue, he didn't know what was. "Miss? Are you vaiting for somevun?" he asked, leaving his place against the wall and walking towards her.

Jen Black looked at him with suspicion written all over her face, not that he could blame her. "Thank you for your concern, but—" Her eyes shot wide when he was still a good distance away from her, and then her smile grew to the same size. "Viktor!"

If he wanted to wonder how she had seen through the flawless glamour he had cast upon himself, it would have to wait; Jen had dropped her bag to the ground and leapt at him, crashing into his stout frame and wrapping her arms around his neck. It was a far more demonstrative show of affection than he had expected, but that did not stop him from sliding his own hands over her hips to her back. "I almost didn't recognize you," she said as she rested her cheek on his chest and looked up at him.

And wasn't that an arousing sight? Shaking himself from that line of observation before something embarrassing happened, he shrugged and answered, "It is an essential skill for anyvun in my position. I am more surprised you could see drough it as easily as you did. And how did you do dat, anyvay?"

"A girl's got to have some secrets." She winked at him and, when he replied to her joke with an unimpressed look, pulled herself up to kiss his lips softly, and then with rising passion. By the time she finally pulled away, he had quite forgotten what they were talking about. Cocking her head in that curious, birdlike way she had, she stared at nothing for a moment. "I knew I had forgotten to do something," she eventually muttered.

"Vhat?"

"Learn Bulgarian."

Ah. Yes, that would be a bit of a problem. Although a substantial minority of the population knew at least some English, it was still a minority. "You vouldn't happen to speak Russian, vould you?" he joked. If so, she would find a far larger number of people she could speak with.

Her voice was flat as she answered, "No. I am bilingual, but unless we're secretly headed to Haiti, I doubt fluency in Creole will do me much good."

"No, probably not. Oh, vell," he said, the solution obvious, "I know it vill not be de most convenient ding for you, but I can tell you vhatever it is you vant to understand. And your exam vill be in English, anyvay, so it is not as dough you vill be at a disadvantage dere."

"Except that would just be a burden on you to have to translate for me all the time. I'm sure there's a better solution. It's just a matter of finding it." She frowned in thought for a moment, and when she looked up again, one of her eyebrows was raised in silent question. "Viktor, do you trust me?"

It was never a good sign when a request was prefaced by that particular statement. "Trust you how?"

"Just relax," she said with a smile and a roll of her eyes. Those same eyes closed, and she hastily added, "Oh, and just so you know: this might itch a little."

Itch? Maybe his own grasp of English was not as good as he thought it was, either. He couldn't think of a single reason why— What. Without. Transform. Matricide. Eggplant, thirsty, yesteryear, rapid, deleterious, snifffactualliverwursttakennoxioussimpleelongated—

…

…

"The hell?" he snapped, his words returning after their sudden absence. That was without a doubt the strangest experience he had ever had. It was as if he had been unable to think; not because his actual thoughts had stopped, but more like the words he had always framed them in were missing, leaving him without a way to make sense of his own mind.

"Now you see why I didn't try to explain what it was I wanted to do," Jen said quietly, giving him a hesitant smile. He just stared at her in shocked disbelief. She had just said she only knew English and Creole, but what poured out from between her lips now was perfect Bulgarian, and more, she spoke it with the exact same accent he had. "There really is no good way to describe it."

"Jen, did you just…?"

"Borrow your knowledge of your mother tongue and duplicate it wholesale in my own mind?" She shrugged sheepishly. "It's an… unconventional application of mind-reading, to be sure, but that is no reason not to use it. It sure would have made learning Creole easier, that's for sure, not that she would have let me in," she added with a purse of her lips.

There was only one part of her statement that really caught his attention. "Mind-reading?"

"Of course," she agreed, as if what she had just done was perfectly normal for her. Seeing his wary expression, she huffed. "My aunt and I use it all the time to share secrets we would rather no one else know just yet. Have no fear, I know exactly what I'm doing."

That admission really made him more worried rather than less. "Just… don't read my mind again, please. Or my friends' or family's," he amended as he pulled his way out of their embrace. He had not even known that was possible, and the knowledge that someone, even this woman, could be peeking into his head without him having a clue was incredibly disturbing.

Standing alone again, Jen looked him up and down, an unreadable expression on her face, before walking over to her dropped bag. She did not seem to be offended by his actions, something he was thankful for as he had not stopped to consider just how his rejection could have been taken before doing it, but considering her family's purported political leanings, that she could mask her true emotions was not much of a stretch. Probably better that they move on, both physically and in their conversation, as fast as possible. He stretched out his hand to her, and she laid her own on top of it.

A crack signaled their Disapparation, and then the walls of his living room appeared around them. "Well, this is it," he said, not having anything better to introduce the modest flat with. "I don't spend a lot of time here, actually, generally just the weeks before our home pitch matches. The rest of the time, we're off in some other town sleeping in our team bus, and during the off-season I normally go to the countryside, at least for a while." He shrugged. "I grew up there, so it's nice to head back home."

"That does explain why it seems so spartan," she agreed. He did not have much in the way of decoration on the walls, only a few photographs of his friends from Túzha and Durmstrang or of past and present teammates, and there were not many pieces of furniture, either. There had never been any reason for it, not when he lived alone. "It's still cleaner than the stereotypical bachelor's pad, though, so thank you."

"I can't really take the credit for that," he admitted. "There's an excellent cleaning service based in this district, so I rent a house-elf for fifteen minutes every Tuesday afternoon to keep everything tidy. It really is well worth the price."

She nodded in understanding and began exploring what little there was to his place. It did not take her long; all that was there was the living room, a kitchenette that saw occasional use, a bathroom, and a single bedroom. The thoughtful hum she made when she discovered that made him start worrying. Had he presumed too much? They had discussed this toward the end of his stay at Hogwarts, but that did not mean circumstances could not have changed since then. "You don't have friends spend the night here often, do you?" she asked, turning to face him with a knowing expression. "Or perhaps you do, but they are a very specific type of friend?

"Regardless," she continued without giving him an opportunity to embarrass himself, "I have to wonder: since I am not nearly so rude a guest as to kick you out of your own bed, where do you plan for me to sleep?"

No, she was giving him that opportunity, after all. Waving his hand weakly at the king-sized bed, the bedroom expanded enough that it did not look crowded, he said, "We could always share, if you didn't mind. It isn't as though it lacks in space."

"Why, Mister Krum, that almost sounded like a proposition." And with that statement, the same words he remembered from over a year previously, his doubts were washed away. She dropped her rucksack onto the floor and propped one hand on her hip, a crafty smile beginning to peek out. "Want to try again?"

Stepping forward, he wrapped his left arm around her waist to pull her close and buried the fingers of his right hand into her thick hair. Her eyes rolled up to watch him while she rubbed her cheek against his palm. "Jen, I want you to stay right next to me. I want to go to sleep with you lying on top of me." He bent down and kissed her with all his passion; he was not a man skilled with words, so instead he let his actions tell her what he felt. "I want to make love to you until you can barely walk the next day." The kiss this time was sweet, gentle. Yes, he wanted to slake his lust upon her, but sex was not all he was interested in. "And then I want to wake with you curled up in my arms. Sleep in my bed, Jennifer."

Jen panted in his arms, her eyes closed. "I don't remember you being quite this suave the last time we saw each other," she said, her voice breathy. The pink tip of her tongue darted out to run over her lips. "You've been practicing while I was gone. If this is the result, I most heartily approve."

He answered that statement with an unseen smile, and his left hand slipped underneath her shirt to slowly run up her spine. "Wait," she suddenly said, opening her eyes and frowning. "Before we do anything, you deserve to know something. I'm currently in a relationship, but she does know that I was coming here this summer and that the history you and I share is far from innocent."

' _She_ '? "You have a girlfriend?" he asked, which she confirmed with a nod. Well, things were about to become either very awkward or very interesting. "And you told her about us?"

She shook her head. "I didn't tell her who you were, but she noticed enough details to put all the pieces together. I did, however, explain how important it was that the details stayed a secret."

That was certainly a relief, he decided with a sigh. "And she is agreeable with you sleeping with someone else?"

"Agreeable… might be a bit strong," she eventually admitted. "It would be better to say that she understands that the situation is complicated. But since my… hmm…  _appetite_  has already caused problems between us, I felt you needed to know about this before anything happened."

"You care a great deal for her, don't you?" he wondered out loud.

She looked away and whispered, "Yes."

A sigh escaped his lips, and he leaned his head down to rest his forehead against hers. "I have already made my opinion clear, but this is your decision. If you want to, I am more than willing to share my bed with you. If you feel it would put too much strain on your romance, I can spend a few days sleeping on the sofa. I don't have to worry about taking a Competency exam," he said when she pulled back and opened her mouth to interrupt, "and as I have no practices to attend, I can lose a few nights of sleep with little consequence. You do not have that luxury."

Sucking on her lip for a moment, Jen's mouth twitched in a weak smile. "I've already said that she knows about this. I'm not going to rub it in her face when I get back, and I've done my best not to bring it up around her, but… There are aspects of my life that she doesn't have to contend with in her own. This is, or might be, related to one of them."

Despite her hinting around the subject, he knew what she was talking about, or at least he thought he did. She was almost old enough to begin receiving marriage offers, and while he and presumably her girlfriend could marry for love, she was nobility, and their rules of marriage were a little different and much more stringent. Jen would be expected to pick her husband in light of who would best elevate her House's status in society.

The formal courting process in Bulgaria could and did take years, and he would be surprised if it were much different in Britain. In the process of finding a spouse, most future ladies slept with a few of their favorite suitors. This was according to a classmate who was a branch member of a minor House, and furthermore he had explained that not only did it serve a practical purpose – a sexually compatible couple would obviously have a greater chance of producing children – but it was sometimes the only influence a noblewoman might have in the final decision. Some betrothal contracts still included virginity clauses, but those were less and less common as the years went on. If Jen continued with her romantic relationship, it would be difficult to stay monogamous while still fulfilling her duties to her family.

He all too easily found himself sympathizing with this mystery girl's displeasure.

Jen shook her head with a sigh. "And I even told myself that I wouldn't stress myself out over this. We already had our plans before she and I got together. If she gets upset, it will be my problem, not yours."

"But are you sure?" he pressed. "I told you, I don't mind if our plans have to change."

"I'm not sure one way or another," she answered with a sad laugh.

* * *

A short woman opened the door to the women's lavatory and ushered Jen into the hallway beyond.

"Welcome to the Ministerial Testing Center," the witch said, her plain skirt and cardigan melting into official-looking robes the instant she passed over the threshold. A tug pulled the key out of the lock and shut the door, and then she gestured for Jen to follow, the pair sweeping down the corridor past many identical and unmarked doors to the sole one in sight that stood out. "Just to make sure, you are Jennifer Black, from Britain, here to take the International Competency Exam for the subject of Offensive Magic and the Dark Arts, yes?"

Jen let her eyes wander the hallway they had just walked down for a moment. She had wondered why the Bulgarian ministry would not conduct their examinations in the ministry building proper, but then she met her guide in an otherwise unremarkable restaurant in the Muggle world. If one could reach this place from a variety of doorways scattered all across the country, she could see why the government would want it separated somewhat. "That is correct."

"Very well. Before we begin, I need to inform you that the examiner scheduled to administer the practical portion of your exam had a family emergency, and her replacement needs a few days to return from his vacation. Therefore, your practical exam will take place on Thursday morning rather than this afternoon. Will that be a problem?"

 _If it were, would you really care?_ , Jen wondered to herself. The woman's voice was absolutely lifeless; if it were not for her ability to feel other people's magical cores, she would be tempted to double-check that she was not dealing with an incredibly advanced golem. It was a good thing that she already had plans to spend a few days in Bulgaria, though she would need to call the travel agency and reschedule her return portkey. "It's fine."

The older witch gave her a plastic smile and finally opened the door, revealing a small room with twelve tables facing a desk at the front of the room. "Most students who wish to take additional Competencies do so immediately after the school year ends, so you've managed to avoid the rush by scheduling this late." Drawing her wand and giving it a wave, the woman caused one of the desk's drawers to unlock itself and a thick sheaf of paper to fly onto the middle table in the front row. A trio of quills and an ink bottle soon joined it.

Jen sat down in one of the two seats at that table while the other witch pulled a large hourglass out of another drawer, one far too small for the timepiece to rest inside without magical aid. "You will have two hours in which to complete this exam. Even though there is no one else in the room, it is our policy that all examinees will still be proctored to prevent anyone from cheating by any means. You may begin… now."

She flipped the test over at the same time the hourglass turned upside down. Only a hundred questions, she noted; that was shorter than her OWL theoretical exams, but considering the subject matter, she would bet that the questions were going to be harder to compensate for the extra time.

 _Question 1_ , she read to herself, quietly thankful that this test was still being administered in English despite her demonstrating her newfound proficiency in Bulgarian,  _A) Name the four primary humors and B) give one spell that would be enhanced through harmonization for each_.

Her eyebrows rose to her hairline. They had to be opening up with an easy question to give the test-takers some false confidence. Quickly linking the beetle-to-button transfiguration, glamours, the basic shield charm, and the sticking charm to bile, blood, phlegm, and feces, respectively, she moved on to the next.  _Question 2, On which three sapient species does the_ Caligo Ambaginis _curse have no effect?_

A smile formed on her face as her quill danced on the page. That expression stayed there for the rest of the two hours.

* * *

"So?" Viktor asked when the door of the flat opened, not looking up as he turned the  _kebapcheta_  he had on the grill pan on top of the stove. "How do you think it went?"

"Odd," Jen decided after a moment. "But odd in a good way. What are you making?"

"You'll see. Table's outside." The girl settled in one of the two chairs he had set up on the balcony – it and the table itself were transfigured, though the tableware thankfully was not – and he charmed the dishes he had been working on for the last hour to follow him as he walked out to join her. "It's been a while since I've done much cooking, so you'll have to forgive me if it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it."

The girl smiled even as the food drifted to the table, not at all disappointed by the simple fare: just a  _shopska_  salad, a bowl of cold  _tarator_  appropriate for the hot summer sun, and the sausages. Filling her plate and bowl, she gave an appreciative hum after the first couple of bites. "So you did well, then?" he asked a few minutes later.

"I think so. It was just the theory portion today; some issues came up that prevented me from doing the practical this afternoon." Swallowing another bite of meat, she asked, "What do you think it says about me that even though the Dark Arts written exam was much more difficult than most of the tests I took at Hogwarts, at the same time it was also far more interesting?"

"It says that you love a challenge." Waiting until she had put a spoonful of  _tarator_  in her mouth, he added, "And that you are a terrible person."

Jen spluttered at that remark, and he laughed despite her glare; the expression lost much of its gravity when she had white soup dripping down her chin. Rather than immediately reply, she dabbed her face dry for a moment. "Thank you, Viktor, for that sterling comment on my character. You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl."

"What can I say? Like all skills, it comes with practice."

"And if that's what you consider charm, it's no wonder you've had such trouble finding a girlfriend." She shook her head with a huff and arranged her face into something just a little too exaggerated to be true sorrow. "To think that you would say such cruel, hurtful things. Now I feel absolutely awful."

Forcing himself to frown, he said in a beseeching voice, "Oh, Jen, I am ever so sorry. It was never my intention to harm such a delicate flower." The girl could not hold back her laughter at that comment. "What can I possibly do to make it up to you?"

"I don't know. After that big of an insult, it would have to be something extremely impressive."

If that wasn't the perfect segue into his surprise, he did not know what was. "As it just so happens," he said, getting up from the table and walking back to the kitchen, "I may have just the thing." When he came back, he opened the envelope and pulled out the two cream-colored cards inside, writing in gold ink on one side explaining what they were. "I believe you said you wanted to see  _Ruslan i Lyudmila_  last night?"

Her eyes sparkled as she grabbed for the opera tickets. "I can't accuse you of not listening to me, can I? That was just an idle comment." Looking up at him, she pointed out, "These are for tonight's performance at the National Theater."

"Yes, they are." He figured no matter how her exam went today, this present would be appreciated. If she thought she did well, as she had, it would be celebratory; if she were worried, it would take her mind off the test. "Why do you sound like that's a problem?"

"Viktor, I came here expecting to take an exam, and the clothes I brought reflect that. Not even the nicest outfit I have with me would be appropriate for a high-fashion opera."

"Good," he said with a relieved smile.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What did you do?"

" _I_  did nothing." Enjoying the irritation that flashed across her face at his unhelpful brevity, he waited a moment before he continued, "You remember Anastasiya, yes? You met her yesterday."

"You mean when your teammates Flooed over while we were in the middle of sex and laughed at our embarrassment for a solid ten minutes? How could I forget?" Her voice softened. "You said she was the Keeper, right? Tall, dark, very pretty, originally from Slovakia?"

"Romania, but yes. She's wanted to meet you ever since she discovered I had 'found' someone, and I called her and told her what I had planned. She is a dab hand at transfiguration, so she went out to find something that would fit you while I got the tickets." Seeing her unsure expression, he explained, "She likes you, even with the unconventional introduction, and was quite eager to help."

"She saw enough of me, and paid enough attention, that she could whip up a mannequin on demand?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "That is a little odd, you have to admit. I suppose it's better than her digging through my clothes, though. When does she plan on bringing it over?"

"She dropped it off shortly before you came back. She wouldn't let me see it, but she said it's hanging in the closet."

Jen frowned. "How? I was only gone for a couple of hours. If it's something nice enough for tonight, I would think it would take longer than that for her to get everything together. When I was getting fitted for my Yule ball dress, I was there for almost four hours." He just smiled, and her face revealed when she had put the pieces together. "That's why you were already awake when I got up this morning."

"Maybe, maybe not. Go and change; if you don't like it, we still have time to get it re-tailored or find something else."

She eyed him suspiciously for a few seconds more before standing, and he listened intently once she was out of sight. There was, sadly, no squeal of delight, but neither did she immediately come out wearing a frown. Five minutes passed uneventfully, leaving him progressively more impatient and worried. What was taking so long?

"Viktor? Can you come over here?"

Jen did not sound distressed; maybe she just needed help with a zipper or something. He was halfway across the living room when she stepped out from the short hallway, and he staggered to a halt. All he could do was stare.

She smirked at his expression and walked closer, the ankle-length black dress making the swaying of her hips almost hypnotic. A flash of white caught his eye as her left leg slipped through the slit in the side of the dress, the fabric parting until it revealed nearly the entire length of her thigh. Each step made the dress shimmer, and the shine matched the silver-and-sapphire earrings – the earrings he had given her! – that dangled just above her collarbones. Jen fluttered her eyelashes to call attention to the pale blue of her eyelids. The only hint of some color other than black and blue was the red heart dangling from her choker and the darker lipstick on her smirk.

Heels clicking lightly on the floor, she came almost to within arms' reach. "I take it you approve?" she asked in a smoky voice.

"Oh, my," he whispered. Reaching out to try to grab her waist and pull her to him, he was surprised when she backed away. "Jen?"

The girl laughed. "As good as I'm sure this dress would look lying on your floor, it might get a little too wrinkled to wear to the performance tonight."

Damn. If it weren't for the reservations he had made at the Shahzadeh Restaurant, he would seriously consider rearranging their plans for the evening. Dinner after rather than before, somewhere there was music and dancing that would let him show off the gorgeous young woman who would be adorning his arm. "Are you sure?"

Chuckling again, Jen turned around and sashayed back into the bedroom. "Don't worry," she called out, "it's not like you won't get to unwrap your present soon enough. You just need a little patience!"

Patience. With her looking like that. Right. Viktor sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. A few hours sitting at the theater would be long enough for their dinners to settle, wouldn't it? Maybe they could still have that dancing, after all.

* * *

 _Perhaps that wasn't such a good idea_ , Viktor thought to himself later that night. The dancing he and Jen had done at the club they visited had left him keyed up and excited, and while the much more private dance they shared once they got home had relaxed him somewhat, he was still unable to quiet his mind and go to sleep.

Jen shifted and flung her right leg over his before burrowing her face back in his chest. She clearly did not have that same problem.

With little else to do, he found himself playing with her hair, and looking down at her, he found himself wondering about the lone piece of jewelry she still had on. Her dress did now rest on the floor, and her earrings had been banished to the dresser, but that black choker remained. What made it so strange was that it did not fit the rest of her style. It was a simple thing, and to him it looked more like costume jewelry than anything else.

Maybe, he speculated, its value was sentimental rather than material; a gift from her girlfriend? Rubbing the band left him even more confused. The pendant itself was nothing special, but the strap it hung from felt like unusually slippery leather. He had never encountered anything quite like it, and he eyed the silhouette of the girl sleeping half on top of him speculatively.

Surely she wouldn't mind if he took it off her for the night.

His fingers followed the curve of her neck, and while they found a hard lump, it was no buckle or snap, just a flat, hard disc. Some strange kind of lock? Carefully shifting the choker around so as not to wake her, he squinted in the dim light coming in through the window to no avail. He just could not make out any details.

With a sigh, he reached out with his left hand and felt around blindly until his fingers found the handle of his wand where it sat on his end table. He had never really tried casting with his off hand, but the single jab for  _Lumos_  was simple enough. A small speck of light shined from the tip of the wand onto the black stone fastened to the band. His breath caught in his lungs as his eyes traced the design etched onto it in gold: a circle inside a triangle, both bisected by a vertical line. He knew that shape; all European wizards did. It was all but burned into their cultural memory.

Why did Jen bear the mark of Grindelwald?

The light, dim though it was, made Jen frown, and after a moment she opened her mouth in a wide yawn. "Go back to sleep."

Viktor grimaced. He had not wanted to wake her, but now that she was, he was going to get some answers. "What is this?"

"Wha?"

A shake of her shoulders, far less gentle than he would otherwise be, forced her eyes open. "Jen. Why are you wearing this?" He poked the choker for emphasis.

That seemed to finish waking her, for her eyes were far clearer now than they had been a second ago. "It's not important."

"You wear the mark of a monster who slaughtered  _thousands_  of innocent people. It is important, and I think I deserve to know."

A moment passed, then two. Finally, Jen rolled off from on top of him to stare up at the ceiling. "It isn't Grindelwald's mark."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's really not. Do you know anything about the Old Ways?" she asked before he could say anything. Staring at her, he slowly shook his head. "Maybe they're called something else here. The veneration of a pantheon of fourteen gods, seven light and seven dark. Does any of this sound familiar?"

"Vaguely." Someone a couple of years ahead of him at Durmstrang had been expelled for… something, he couldn't remember what exactly, but he thought the boy's defense had involved the right to practice his religion. He was in his second year at the time, and this had not sounded important enough to pay much attention to.

Jen tapped the stone. "One of them is Death, and this symbol has been associated with him for centuries. I don't know why Grindelwald decided to repurpose it for his own ends; maybe he was trying to equate himself with Death or thought he was Death's earthly incarnation. I don't know. All I do know is that it has a much greater meaning than one man's hatred."

Okay. On the one hand, Viktor was quite relieved that the woman he had fallen so hard for was not a supporter of total extermination of all people not exactly like her, but on the other… "Why do you wear Death's mark, then?"

The hesitation now was longer that before. Was she going to answer or not? A solid minute passed in silence before Jen sat up in the bed. "Because I worship him," she bit out, "just as members of my family have for generation upon generation. It's an important tradition, one we've upheld even when we have to hide it because some people are irrationally fearful of what we do in our own lives or assume that we're irredeemably evil because one madman co-opted the sign of our faith."

 _Just like you did just now_. The statement remained unvoiced but still hung thick in the air. Not knowing what else to do, he reached out for her, but she stood before his arm was halfway and snatched up her wand. A twirl conjured a short robe that she quickly wrapped around herself. "Jen, I'm sorr—"

"I'm not dealing with this right now," she snapped, cutting off his apology. "We can talk about it tomorrow. Maybe. Good night."

He watched her stomp out of the bedroom and dropped his head back down onto the pillow with a groan. What was that curious English phrase? He had stuck his foot in his mouth? This certainly qualified. Even knowing that there was no way he could have predicted her reaction, this argument was still going to make things between them far less comfortable in the near future.

Standing up, he walked over to the doorway and peered out into the living room to find Jen lying on the couch, face turned toward the cushions and a conjured pillow under her head. He walked back to the bed and flopped down on it, one thick fist burying itself in his own pillow. That couch was not a comfortable place to sleep, which meant she was still going to be cranky when she woke up.

Tomorrow morning was looking uglier and uglier.

* * *

Jen looked up at Viktor, once again hiding behind his glamour, and wrapped her arms around him in a farewell hug. Her terror at his discovery of the Resurrection Stone and her indignation at his accusation had mostly faded by the next morning, and considering she had no idea when she would again have the chance to experience Sofia, she had forced down the last few dregs of temper and resolved to enjoy herself. The obvious sincerity of his apology hadn't hurt matters, either.

His arms squeezed back, and reluctant though he seemed to be about it, he eventually pulled away. "I wish you didn't have to go," he muttered, his voice almost lost in the cacophony of the travel office.

"I know," she said softly. "I somewhat wish I didn't, either. But I need to head back home."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it."

She smiled and raised her hand to lay it gently against his cheek. Even with the fight her third night here, she had enjoyed her six days in Bulgaria. Some of that was her confidence about her exam – her proctor for the practical portion had been quite enthusiastic regarding her display – but most of it was because she really did like spending time with Viktor. Even with all the lies she had to keep straight to hide her origins, she still felt like she could relax a little more around him than she could around most people. Tracey, of course, was an exception because the Slytherin already knew so many of her secrets, and Luna…

A cold hand gripped her heart as that realization set it. In some ways, being around Viktor felt much the same as being around Luna. There were obvious differences, too, such as Viktor being much more open about his protectiveness and taking more of a lead, but some of that could be attributed to gender roles and the expectations that were part of a heterosexual relationship as opposed to the murkier rules of her and Luna's own pairing. But how she felt about Viktor compared to Luna?

Baron protect her, she might just be falling in love with him, too.

Swallowing faintly, she schooled her expression to give no hints of the disconcerting – or, if she were being honest, terrifying – possibilities running through her head. "No, you don't have to like it, but it doesn't make it any less true." And wasn't that an ironic answer! "Besides, it isn't like I'm going to disappear. I'm sure we'll see each other again at some point. We just don't know when."

"No, we don't." He placed his hand on her shoulder and slowly ran it down and up her arm, but before they could say anything more, the clock behind them began chiming. Her portkey back to Britain was about to depart.

She gave him a weak smile and stepped backwards. "Goodbye, Viktor."

"Goodbye, Jen." Her hand fell upon the metal circle the rest of the people were already holding. He opened his mouth to say something else, but then the clock struck three, and his words were lost to the whirling air.

* * *

**The real reason Jen showed off her skills with Legilimency? I got tired of writing Viktor's accent midway through that first scene. And the Shahzadeh Restaurant is not mine, unfortunately; I'm just borrowing it from Rakeesh's absolutely incredible story** _**A Long Journey Home** _ **.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	3. Expanding the Circle

**PsionicShadow, really:**  A couple of things for you to keep in mind. One, Jen's bisexual; she can fall for a guy just as easily as she does a girl, and some relationships happen faster than others. That's just a fact of life. Two, this isn't a new development. Go back to  _Princess_  and look at chapters 25, 27, 32, 33, 35, and  _especially_  31, where I explicitly spell out for you that Jen was already developing feelings for him. The year apart dulled them, but it did not remove them. In  _Ascendant_ , even though he doesn't show up in person, take a look at chapter 43, where Tonks reminds you of that little wrinkle, and chapter 34, where I hint at this very plot point, albeit subtly. This has been building for a while. Where exactly it's going, I don't know, but for right now it's a thing.

 **Disclaimer:**  Did the Order reconsider letting Harry and possibly Ron and Hermione into their meetings after being reminded at the end of book 5 that not only did Harry have a better track record against Voldemort than any of their members except Dumbledore, all leaving the trio in the dark would do was make them hunt for information and act on it at their own discretion? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 3  
** **Expanding the Circle**

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I'm pretty sure I just went crazy for a moment there."

Sirius shook his head with a sigh, and Dora just rolled her eyes. "While I think you might be crazy sometimes, this wasn't one of them," he said.

"Are you sure?" Jen asked, cocking her head. "Because I could swear you said that you wanted Dora and me to join the Order of the Phoenix as if you actually thought I would ever say yes."

"No, I said the two of you have been invited to tonight's meeting. Mad-Eye didn't say it outright, but I think he and Albus want to question you about exactly what happened during your fight with Voldemort." He grinned weakly, as though he found what he was about to say only darkly humorous. "They apparently think there was more to it than what was in the official report. What it says clashes with the story Danny told Dumbledore."

"Should have let the little bastard die when I had the chance," she muttered to herself. She had gone through the trouble of saving the Potter heir in hope that he might prove himself useful in her fight with Voldemort – and, to be honest, whatever he had done with his wand had given her the time she needed to spring her trap on the black wizard – but when he ran off once Dora showed up, she thought that would be the end of it. Clearly not. Taking a deep breath, she asked, "And do you think I  _want_  to be interrogated by people who will distrust me either because they think Bellatrix is my mother or because they know I want nothing to do with the Potters? This will just be a colossal waste of time on all sides."

And then she leaned back and opened her book back up.

"Really?" Sirius asked in an unimpressed voice. "That's it? Your entire response to this can be boiled down to  _'Bugger off'_ , then?"

"What would you rather me say?" she shot back, eyes not leaving the page. "Should I instead volunteer to put up with people who despise me and suborn myself to someone I believe tried to reduce me to a Squib when I was a toddler? Someone who has not once denied the charges that he used mind magics on the students under his care?"

He sighed. "Do you think  _I_  like Dumbledore? That I haven't wanted to strangle him with his own beard from time to time? That, if you found any actual evidence at all that he attacked your magic, I wouldn't help you hide the body? When the news of his actions at Hogwarts broke, it was a good thing he went into hiding, or I might have reported his location to the DMLE myself. But much as I dislike him on a personal level, he is still one of the only people to fight Voldemort one-on-one and force him to retreat."

Jen looked pointedly at Dora, then down at herself. When she looked back at Sirius, one eyebrow was raised in question. They had represented themselves pretty well, if she did say so herself.

Sirius, however, did not seem to agree with her silent counterargument. "Dora had to step in to save you, if you care to recall. Do you think a few days is enough time to make any appreciable difference should you give it another go?"

"You'd be surprised," she answered with a faint smile. She had not told anyone just what she had done to Voldemort, mostly because explaining the what would then necessitate discussing the why, and she would much rather not explain just how she knew that Voldemort was a soul mage. Knowing too much about the Black Arts tended to earn one suspicious glances.

Walking over, Sirius pulled her feet off the other seat of the library's sofa and sat down. "Jen, talk to me. What is the real reason you don't want to go to the meeting?"

"You mean your little club's abysmal failure a few weeks ago isn't reason enough?" He opened his mouth to refute that, so she pressed on, "You were led into a trap, and now whatever fighting force you were once able to bring to bear has been cut down to half that number, either from those who died or are still too injured to be able to contribute in the near future. Furthermore, if those I've come across during the Solstice Ball or when they showed up at Hogsmeade are representative of the group, they don't have the power needed to fight Voldemort with any hopes of success.  _You_  don't," she added, staring directly into Sirius's eyes.

"No, I don't," he replied, "and yes, the Death Eaters' ambush hurt us. I'm not going to deny either of those facts. But we're working more closely with the Ministry now – at least, some of us are – and several people have discussed taking a bit more of an investigative role. Not to mention, there are still those of us who, even if we can't fight Voldemort directly, can still hold our own against the Death Eaters.

"And I know you. This may all be true, but it still isn't the real reason, and the fact that you keep talking around whatever it is you're trying to hide isn't making me feel any better about it."

She looked down and flipped a page, pretending to read but taking none of the words in. "You see what you wish to see. That's all it is."

"Jennifer."

A slow breath in, and it was exhaled with the faintest shudder. She just did not know if it was from nervousness or rage. "Sirius, I doubt it's escaped your notice, but I'm a  _dark witch_. When I fought Voldemort, I was doing my best to break him. I wasn't using Stunners or Disarming Charms, either. I used Fiendfyre and runic spells and the Killing Curse—"

"La la la la la!" Dora shouted at them, fingers jammed into her ears and a hard glare aimed at her specifically. "If you're going to admit to using dark magic, wait till I'm out of the room. And look up the definition of  _'plausible deniability'_  while you're at it."

She rolled her eyes at the Auror's foolishness. Like she didn't know the importance of deniability. Turning back to her godfather, she finished her thought. "I don't fit with the Order, nor would I want to. In some ways, I'm more like the Death Eaters than those fighting them. And while I could not care less that a bunch of bumbling Dumbledore-worshippers don't like me, that doesn't mean I want to spend my time being looked down upon by people who can't do a fraction of what I can and consider their weakness and timidity to be virtues." Glancing down again, she muttered just loud enough for them to make out, "I'm a bitch, not a masochist."

Through her sonar, she felt Sirius moving, so it was not a surprise when he grabbed her knees and pulled her across the cushions so he could hug her tight. Nor, if she were completely honest with herself, did she exactly mind his attempts to be comforting. Ever since her fight with Voldemort, she had been reminded again and again of just how different she was from the people she knew and cared about. The pain that had wracked her body at the sound of the phoenix song released from Voldemort and Potter's wands; Luna's comments of not sympathizing with someone  _'unrepentantly evil'_ , though directed at Morgan le Fay rather than herself; Viktor's abhorrence at even her downplayed connection with the Baron…

She knew she was a monster. That didn't mean she wanted it repeatedly shoved in her face.

"You are a dark witch," he muttered into her hair, "but like I told you before, I don't care about that. No matter what you do, you're still my goddaughter first and foremost. Is this what's been bothering you since you came back from Bulgaria? I thought something had happened, but when you said the test went fine and nothing remarkable happened, I wasn't sure what was going through your head."

Had she been mulling this over subconsciously? She certainly did not remember doing so, but if Sirius, who was far from the most perceptive member of the family, had noticed, it must have been obvious. Not knowing what else to say, she whispered, "I'm sorry I worried you."

Nearly a minute passed before she finally extricated herself from his grasp, and looking at his mournful expression, she did not need to read his mind to know what he was thinking. The pity in his gaze made her grit her teeth and set her blood to boiling. "But regardless of all that, what I said before is still true. Going to the Order and dancing to their tune is pointless, and given the choice, I would rather have Voldemort at my back. At least his actions I can predict." She grabbed for her book and turned away from godfather and cousin both. "If you two want to waste your time with them, fine, but leave me out of it."

"Sure, Jen, if that's what you want," Sirius said in far too conciliatory a voice as he stood and motioned for Dora to precede him out of the library.

She managed to wait until they both Flooed out before she hurled the book at the closed door with a shriek of hate.

* * *

 _I hate to admit it_ , Dora thought, her eyes nearly glazed over from boredom,  _but Jen might have been right about all this_.

It wasn't that the meeting was pointless, per se; the information being discussed was important, and the more people who knew, the better. The issue she had was that this was all stuff she already knew, facts and estimates and potential targets that had been debated throughout the Auror Office for days, and so far, none of the Order members had come to any conclusions that had not already been reached, and in much greater detail, too. Shooting Kingsley a pointed glance and exaggeratedly rolling her eyes once he looked her way, she was disappointed but not terribly surprised when he just pursed his lips at her and returned his attention to what Mad-Eye was saying. Kingsley was a nice guy, and he had helped her out of a couple of jams when she was a fresh recruit, but Merlin if he couldn't be a stick in the mud.

Looking back down the length of the Longbottoms' dining room table, she caught the piercing glare Mad-Eye's mad eye was giving her and answered it with a cheery smile.

With nothing better to do, she let her gaze rove over the Order. Some of them she knew from the Ministry or Hogwarts – she had been horrified to hear of Hestia Jones's death, who had been a fellow Hufflepuff only a couple of years older than her – and she knew her family, obviously. The three Potters she also recognized, though she had to admit that she really did not exactly know anything about them beyond what was publicly available and the things Sirius and Jen had said. All things considered, she really had no reason to get to know them personally, either, not when they had threatened to take away her baby cousin.

Most of the rest of the Order she had only been introduced to that night. Her eyes fell on one member of that group in particular, and a small smile crossed her face. She had always been attracted to older guys, a trait that had gotten her into trouble more than once… several times… okay, a  _lot_  while she was still in school. By her seventh year, Professor Sprout had ceased to be embarrassed or irritated and had just grown bored of finding her half- or totally naked in a broom cupboard or empty classroom. Still, this wizard was just yummy: wiry build, grey streaks in his hair that gave him a distinguished appearance, strong hands, even the wispy little mustache he had going. He looked like a teacher, and while it had been a while since she graduated, being a Metamorphmagus meant she could still pull off the perfect naughty schoolgirl look—

Her aunt Narcissa's elbow collided with her ribs, and she flicked a glare at the piebald witch sitting next to her before realizing that the portion of the meeting she had been ignoring was now over. Unobtrusively shifting her clothes and face around to hide her previous inattention, she then had to hide a scowl when Dumbledore stood at the head of the table. She was one of the only ones who seemed displeased at his presence, however, because apparently most of the Order had managed to convince themselves that the accusations leveled against the old man were all made up or something.

Or perhaps, she admitted to herself, they just had a harder time shaking off the respect that just about all Hogwarts students eventually developed for the former Headmaster. If it weren't for his actions affecting her family directly, she might be in the same frame of mind.

"Thank you for that summary, Alastor," he was saying, looking over the assembled group. "As you all might have noticed, we have two new faces with us tonight. Young Danny Potter needs no introduction, and Nymphadora Tonks is another Auror and was part of the group that responded to the attack on Hogsmeade a few weeks ago."

"She fought Voldemort by herself," Mad-Eye grunted with obvious pride, "and from what I heard, she landed more than just a few glancing blows."

She smiled at him in appreciation. The grizzled old wizard had been set to retire before her final phase of training, but instead had stayed on to be her mentor for that last year. Hearing him say in front of the entire Auror Corps that she was going to be great while pinning her scarlet cloak around her shoulders was one of the happiest moments of her life.

"Indeed." Dumbledore frowned and continued, "The primary reason I have asked them to join us is that the Minister has finally permitted us to have a copy of the official report of that incident, and I could not help but notice some discrepancies between it and what Danny said he witnessed. I assume everyone has had a chance to look through the copies that were delivered to you?"

"But weren't you only around for the end of that fight?" one of the members she did not know the name of asked her. "Why can't we just talk to the Black girl?"

Sirius's smile was toothy and humorless. "She said she had other things to do. None of which are the concern of anyone else here," he added when several people started talking over themselves to ask just what could be so much more important than this waste of time.

"That is unfortunate, but as Nymphadora—"

"Tonks," she cut in, interrupting Dumbledore before he could say any more. "Just call me Tonks." Her family could get away with calling her Dora, but they were it. Everyone else would have to make due with her surname.

"Very well," he said after a moment's pause. "As I was saying, since Tonks was there for some of it, she can tell us what actually happened while she was present."

Glancing over the group again, she was not surprised to find all of them watching her expectantly. It was unfortunate that she was going to have to disappoint them. "Like that guy said, I wasn't around for most of it, but what's in the report after I showed up is almost word for word what I said in my debrief. If you've read it, then you know what happened."

"What about the fires?" the youngest Potter challenged. "There's nothing in there about Voldemort making a snake out of fire, or of what Black did with her own to force it back."

She blinked at him, her eyes growing the slightest bit larger to make herself look more innocent. It would not trick everyone – already she could see the corners of Mad-Eye's lips twitching from the smile he was suppressing – and she had her doubts that most of the people here would believe her, but if she could shake the assumptions of even a couple, she would count that as a success. "What fires are you talking about? I don't remember either of those things happening."

Danny gaped at her, and James shot her a disbelieving glance from beside him. Whatever. There was a very good reason for her denials: as she had been reminded not half an hour earlier, her cousin was a dark witch and throughout that fight had probably – 'probably' only because she had intentionally never asked – been casting dark magic like it was going out of style. Revealing that information to the rest of the family was one thing, but if Dora was going to keep that a secret from her fellow Aurors, all of whom learned enough dark magic over the course of fighting it that one of them going rogue and naming himself a Dark Lord was a legitimate nightmare scenario, then what were the chances she would tell the Order anything?

"Then we are left with a frustrating conundrum," Dumbledore said, one hand running over his beard. "Two people who can both be proven to be at the scene, and yet your accounts are mutually exclusive. One of you is either mistaken or lying."

She shrugged her shoulders as though she didn't have a clue. If she were really trying to needle him, now would be the perfect time to refer to the accusations about him altering kids' minds, but she wasn't going to be so stupid as to—

"Considering only one of them has recently spent time around someone who has been accused of manipulating people's thoughts, I know whose version of events I would trust," Narcissa pointed out in an airy voice.

The tail end of her comment was nearly lost amid the protests the rest of the Order voiced. "That's a lie!" Molly Weasley yelled, her voice rising above the rest. "Everyone knows that nasty Umbridge woman made all that up!"

"Then perhaps one of the active Aurors among us can tell us just what the DMLE's position is on the subject. Surely they have investigated those claims."

Dora kept silent, knowing that her own testimony would be ignored because of who her family was, so after another few seconds Kingsley sighed. "We did investigate, and what we found is that some students did, in fact, admit to certain things that led her to that conclusion. The veracity of their statements is still in question, but it was not a fabrication on Umbridge's end."

And if that wasn't the most politic way ever of saying that the charges were true but he didn't want to believe them, she didn't know what was.

His words seemed to mollify the group, though, who could now convince themselves that they were not in the wrong. "Probably it was a bunch of Slytherins who said that," the same wizard said, blind to the glares he received from both Narcissa and Snape. "But it still doesn't help us figure out what really happened."

Dumbledore finally spoke now that his followers had reassured themselves that he would never do something so foul. "Thank you for your faith in me. I am saddened that you would think so little of me even now, Madam Malfoy, but I assure you and everyone else here that I have done nothing of the sort. Doubtless you do not believe me, but it is the truth."

"You're right, I don't believe you," the Dark witch replied, voice silky and dangerous. "You see, I still remember how you set yourself against my younger niece practically from the moment she set foot inside Hogwarts. I remember how you seized our family's belongings without cause and destroyed them. I remember how you attempted to punish her when she defended herself from ten witches and wizards who tried to grievously injure or even kill her, and how it took that news leaking to the press and the DMLE getting involved to have the ringleader arrested and the rest sufficiently cowed that they did not try such a despicable thing again." The smile she shot Dumbledore from across the table was sharp as a razor. "From my personal experience, twisting young Mister Potter's memories to cast her in the worst possible light would be par for the course for you, and to then indirectly accuse my other niece of lying? Why, that would just be the icing on the cake."

"I did not say Tonks was lying," argued the old man, "merely that one of their stories must, by sheer necessity, be wrong. Whether such inaccuracies are intentional or not is something I cannot say without more information at hand. Besides," he turned to face Dora, "one of the discrepancies between your account and Danny's is that he said that at one point Voldemort vanished, at which time you fell to the ground in apparent pain. It is well-known to all of us who fought in the last war that Voldemort is capable of possession, and in such a case, it is not an impossibility that the mental attack could have skewed your perceptions. How sure are you in your memories, Auror Tonks?" Dumbledore asked in a gentle tone that nonetheless sounded almost mocking to her ears. "Can you say without a single doubt that everything you think happened is true?"

"Considering my cousin was there for that part of the fight and her story matches mine, yes, I can say without a doubt that I was at no point possessed and that my memory is totally intact," she lied boldly. "Moreover, something I  _don't_  remember is Potter sticking around. He vanished shortly after I Apparated in, and I did not see him again until after the fight was over." Leaving that for the Order to mull over, she leaned back and carefully glanced over at Mad-Eye. If anyone was going to ruin this smokescreen, it would be him.

The old Auror was looking right at her, both eyes focused, and as she watched, he pointedly looked away and took a sip from his hip flask. She grinned inside; yeah, he would keep her secret.

"If that's where you stand, then I suppose further discussion is pointless. However, also related to the Auror Office… Kingsley." The African wizard looked up at the sound of Dumbledore calling his name. "You mentioned to me last week that you had heard rumors of changes that would be coming to the Corps. Do you have any more information on that score?"

Kingsley stood, and Dora's mind raced as she tried to figure out what they were talking about. The only thing she could think of that fit that was…

"Yes, Professor. Minister Bones just a few days ago signed a set of executive orders that have informally been termed the Crouch Protocols within the Ministry. It is, in many ways, a return to the operational orders Bartemius Crouch got signed off for the Aurors and Hit Wizards during the tail end of the previous war." Kingsley frowned. "More specifically, they permit field commanders to authorize lethal force without consulting the director and lower the amount of evidence necessary to make arrests based on suspicion of public threat. Officially, this is to hasten the capturing of suspected Death Eaters and avoid losing sight of them while waiting for an official arrest warrant to be issued, but…" Giving Sirius a short nod, he continued, "It also increases the chance of people being arrested unjustly. That is not to say that such things will certainly happen, but the potential for abuse is still there.

"There are some other changes in protocol that were made, such as placing Listening Charms in public places where known or suspected criminals have been found to visit frequently and reducing the number of Wizengamot members needed to approve the use of Veritaserum for interrogation, but those are relatively minor in comparison."

"Surely that can't be legal," Arthur Weasley said, several others muttering in agreement. "Wouldn't changing laws like this need approval from the Wizengamot?"

James Potter and Dumbledore both nodded, but then Kingsley continued, "Ordinarily, yes, but since we are officially in a state of war, she does have a little leeway. There is a precedent that wartime Ministers have greater latitude in regard to the orders they give the DMLE, and the permit for lethal force and evidence threshold are not a change in the law so much as a change of department policy, which even under normal circumstances is well within her purview. Furthermore, while the orders she has issued will need ratification by the Wizengamot to continue, she does have a wartime grace period of sixty days before that is necessary. She did, however, mention to several of the Senior Aurors that she would be asking them for official approval fairly soon, potentially at the next meeting."

"Good." Everyone turned to look at Mad-Eye in surprise. Letting his blue eye rove over their faces, he shrugged and explained, "About time we started fighting fire with fire. Nothing tempts predators like prey that won't fight back."

"Alastor, surely you are not serious," Dumbledore began, only to be cut off by the ex-Auror's raspy laugh.

"Not serious? Albus, you know I was an active Auror in the last war." He jerked his thumb at the scars crisscrossing his face. "It's where I got most of these, after all. Crouch only got those expanded powers for the DMLE in the final year of it, and do you know what? That was when we actually started getting ahead of the bastards. Do you really think any of the Death Eaters were remorseful about what they did? Do you think if threatened with jail time, they would stop, even without the richer members paying for them to get off? No. Besides, the ones who aren't devoted to the cause are more scared of their boss than they are of us. They won't surrender. They won't stop. Not unless we  _make_  them."

"So instead you want to murder them all?" James asked, a sick expression coming over his face. "If we descend to their level, we'll be just like them."

"You're saying I'm just like the Death Eaters, then? I took down my fair share of them last time." A couple of people, to Dora's complete shock, actually turned green at that. "And it's not murder if they're trying to kill you. Not if they're trying to kill someone else, either."

Dumbledore frowned, the expression more like a scowl. Speaking carefully, he asked, "Not to denigrate your efforts and sacrifices, but how does that sort out the actual Death Eaters from those who are victims of the Imperius? Surely you are not advocating killing everyone who happens to be in regalia."

"A cynical individual might say that there will always be collateral damage in a war," he answered in a thoughtful voice. Dora had to fight her bark of laughter down; it would be hard to find someone more cynical than Mad-Eye. Or more distrustful and paranoid, for that matter. Before anyone could freak out too much, however, he continued, "But no, I'm not. Do you really think we just barged in throwing curses at anything that moves?" He shook his head. "People under the Imperius act differently, and their reactions are slowed. Most of the time, they could be Stunned with little risk. Those who move faster, who obviously are trying to kill us? If we could capture them alive, we did – you can't interrogate a corpse, after all – but if it was too dangerous, sometimes killing them was the only option. It's distasteful, no doubt about it, but you do what you have to do."

"Killing is never the only option," Lily refused.

Dora glanced about the room. That she and Kingsley were in agreement with Mad-Eye, albeit reluctantly on the African wizard's part, was no great surprise; as Aurors, they were the ones who were going to be putting their lives on the line every day. For Narcissa and Snape, both of whom were of a Darker persuasion, to be comfortable with the turns this conversation had taken was likewise expected. So, too, was the disgust and denial on the majority of the Order's faces. What  _was_  surprising was the few wizards and witches who, despite their discomfort, appeared to be giving it some serious thought.

From next to her, Sirius let out a faint whine but said nothing.

Dumbledore, too, was surveying the Order, but what he thought about what he saw was a mystery. "This is something we clearly will need to discuss more at a later date. Following our last engagement with the Death Eaters, Alastor suggested we spend time practicing how to react as groups, and so he and I have divided the Order into several teams. I have the list with me"—here he held out a roll of parchment—"so please take a look at it before you leave. Alastor and Kingsley have both offered to act as your opponents for this training so you will have experience dueling people with similar skills to the more dangerous Death Eaters; Tonks, would you be willing to do the same?"

"Sure," she answered easily. It would be good for the Order members to learn how to defend themselves more effectively, especially after Jen's reminder of just how badly they had done in their previous fight.

"Thank you. Is there anything else anyone wishes to discuss?" When no one spoke, he concluded, "Until we next meet, then. I do not need to tell you that we are in dark and dangerous times. Stay safe."

Everyone stood and immediately broke up into small groups, no doubt to discuss the divide that had just been revealed. Not for the first time, Dora wished Jen had taught her how the girl could keep track of everything going on around her. Her aunt took her hand, shaking her from her thoughts, and tugged her toward the door. "Was it everything you hoped it to be?" the older witch asked, a raised eyebrow indicating there was more to the question than what had just been voiced.

A moment's thought let her realize what it was Narcissa really wanted to know. "Is this what it's always like? Just spreading information around?" The woman thought for a moment before nodding, and she admitted, "Maybe Jen had the right of it, then. Except for that last little revelation, there's nothing here that I didn't already know, and they don't seem to really do anything."

"Yes, that was certainly interesting," Narcissa murmured in agreement. "I might just need to reach out to a few people, sound out their thoughts on the subject. And in the Order's defense," she added in a reluctant voice, as if she would rather do anything else than defend Dumbledore's crew, "in the last war they did have a decent record of responding to the raids alongside or even before the DMLE could arrive. Lucius certainly complained about them showing up to interfere often enough."

While Dora was still caught off-guard by that admission – not that she was unaware of Lucius's membership in the Death Eaters, but just from the sheer surprise that the habitually circumspect Narcissa would speak of it so openly – a loud  _thunk, thunk_  made her turn her head. "Painted a bit of a target on your back, didn't you, Mad-Eye?" she joked.

"Just said what needed to be said. Fourteen years of peace left us all a little complacent. That ambush was a wake-up call." He turned his ugly visage to Narcissa. "Not that I want to tell you to go away, but Tonks and I need to have a private chat. Go away."

"And here I thought you had finally learned some manners. Such a disappointment." Dora was not sure if her aunt's smile was meant to take away from or reinforce the cattiness of that remark. "You're a big girl, Dora. I hope you won't mind if we don't wait up for you."

"No, I think I can Floo home on my own, thanks."

Mad-Eye clucked his tongue as he watched Narcissa walk off. "There are days I wonder how you can stand to be around her."

 _Some days I wonder the same, but_ … She shrugged. "You can choose your friends. You can't choose your family."

"Aye, that's the truth." Stomping across the hallway to a closed door, he waved his wand at it in one of the more esoteric unlocking charms she knew and let himself in. Dora followed, taking a glance around a small powder room before the door swung shut behind her.

She grinned to herself. "Look, Mad-Eye. I'm flattered, really, but I just don't like you like that."

"Can it, girlie." The old wizard settled himself on the lid of the toilet and stared at her. "You and I both know you were lying about what happened when you fought Voldemort. I haven't heard all the details – all Albus told me was that there were a number of discrepancies – but I suspect Potter's version of events is closer to what actually happened. I think you're covering up for Black."

"Was there a question in there?" she asked sweetly.

He snorted. "Just tell me this. Are you doing it because she's family, or are you doing it because you think it's in the public's best interest? Are you acting like a Black or like an Auror?"

"Can't I be doing both?" His natural eye, dark and beady, narrowed at her while the electric blue one continued spinning dizzily. Before he could say anything, she continued, "My cousin fought Voldemort. Head on. By herself. Far as I could tell from how she told it, Potter was a distraction at best. A fifteen-year-old girl, and while she didn't land a solid blow on him"—Mad-Eye grunted disparagingly—"he  _also_  couldn't touch her. She wasn't trying to stop him, either; what she cared about was killing him."

"Did she use dark magic?" he asked in a knowing tone.

"If it's not in the official report, I'm going to say no, she didn't." That actually earned a mocking laugh from her old mentor. "And, for the sake of argument, let's assume she did. Would it really matter what she used to kill him as long as she managed it in the end?"

"If it means we'll have to worry about a Dark Lady rising up to take his place in a decade, yeah, I'd be concerned." She bristled at that, and he held up one hand. "Not saying for sure she would or wouldn't, but you know that's what Albus would suggest. A bunch of other people who were just in that room, too. And you have to admit they've got a point; the Blacks don't have a reputation of being trustworthy. Give them power, and they'll take as much as they can the second you turn your back."

"And yet you called me a Black just a minute ago. Are you saying you don't trust me?"

His craggy face shifted as a mocking smile appeared. "I don't trust no one, cadet. You should know that better than most. I didn't get a good read of the girl when I was a teacher; too busy trying to figure out who messed with the Goblet and then increasing the security around Hogwarts. What I do know is that she acts a lot like your aunts, and that's not a comparison I like."

"She's Bellatrix's daughter and spent a lot of time growing up with Narcissa," she commented, repeating the lie that they all had grown so familiar with over the last year. Sometimes it got hard to remember that it wasn't a lie. "I'd be more surprised if she didn't act like them. But it doesn't mean she's evil." Back straightening, she declared, "I'd fight alongside her again in a heartbeat."

"Fight with her  _again_?" Mad-Eye asked with a nasty smile. "I don't recall that being in the report. In fact, I think it said that you fought him alone as soon as you arrived." She winced at that mistake, but before she could say anything, he opened the door. "You've got a good head on your shoulders – I managed to teach you that much, at least – so I'll leave it alone for now. But if I think it becomes relevant, we'll have to talk about this again, and it won't be so friendly. Understand?"

"Yeah, I understand." Unless he thought Jen was a threat, that she really was going to turn into a Dark Lady, this was a nonissue, but if he ever did start thinking that… She shuddered. Even after fighting Voldemort, crossing wands with Mad-Eye Moody was still a terrifying prospect.

"Good. Now, I think I need to talk to some other people. See if I can't convince them not to do something stupid just because Albus is the one who told them to do it." The ex-Auror shook his head. "I like the guy, but Merlin, he can be an idiot sometimes."

* * *

**Oh, Dora. She's actually my third favorite character in the series, behind Luna (obviously my number one) and snapping at Hermione's heels. She loses points for the moping she does during the whole Lupin/Tonks subplot in book 6 (you'll see why that irritates me next chapter), but Hermione was also a massive bitch in that book, so she isn't that far from stealing the silver.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	4. Forced Employment

**Huge thanks to bissek, Byakugan789, Jack Inqu, skywiseskychan, The Sinful, and especially SixPerfections for helping me out with an interesting little subplot for this story that's bubbling in my brain. Hopefully now it won't be utter crap.**

**Disclaimer:**  Despite watching angry and even booby-trapped letters be delivered to Hermione after Skeeter's article about her, him, and Krum came out, did Harry wonder why he didn't get even a single piece of hate-mail while the Ministry was making him out to be insane? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 4  
** **Forced Employment**

A golden glow caught Sirius's eye as he came down the stairs, and he made a swift detour to the tray on the table inside the foyer. If nothing else, it was proof the spell was working as it ought, he decided as he scooped out the two letters inside the tray and the the glow promptly vanished. One had the Ministerial seal pressed into the envelope's wax, but the other had no marking to indicate its origins. The handwriting on the front looked so familiar, but he could not put his finger on exactly why that was.

It had to have been someone he had written to a lot before his incarceration, he knew that much, but after twelve years spent in the literally soul-consuming hell that was Azkaban, many of those happy memories were long gone. His recovery at St. Mungo's had helped a tremendous amount – he doubted he would be anything close to sane had he decided to throw the therapist out of the room like he considered doing his first dozen or so sessions – but even now, two years later, there were still holes in his memory and wounds on his soul.

He pushed the dark thoughts away and refocused on the present. Who had sent the letter? A few seconds' fruitless thinking made him shrug. Though he was curious who it was, it really was not his place to figure it out. It wasn't like it was his letter. Continuing down the stairs to the kitchen, he pulled out the chair next to Narcissa and tossed the letters across the table. "Morning post!"

Jen quirked an eyebrow and kept her gaze on him as she gathered the letters. "And they came to you instead of me because…?"

"We discussed this before you ran off to Bulgaria," he reminded her. "Unless you'd rather have a bunch of owls dropping off the betrothal contracts and gifts in your lap all day once your birthday rolls around?"

"No, I just would have preferred we talk about you collecting my post when I wasn't running around to finish packing my things. I wasn't paying as much attention then as I really should have been."

Sirius shrugged. He knew this was Jen's love of secrecy talking, but it really wasn't such a big deal. It was just a little post-redirection charm cast over the house to collect all her mail in a single place; he had one up for himself, as well, so that his post would be waiting for him in his study. "I added exception clauses for all your friends, so their owls should be able to find you wherever you happen to be. And it's a minor spell, just something to make your birthday and the days immediately afterward a little easier. It isn't like I was going to leave it in force while you were at Hogwarts."

"Thank you for those adjustments, at least," she grumbled, then she sighed. "But can it come down once the initial storm of proposals ends rather than waiting until September, perhaps?"

"Of course it can. Once I forward your replies to them, all subsequent letters should come directly to me because I'm your head of House. I figure it should be safe to take it down after… the first week of August?"

"And yet you put it up a month before my birthday," she pointed out.

"First, you agreed to it. Second, it was going to have to go up at some point, anyway. No reason to wait. Third and most importantly," he said with a small smile, "I was looking out for the poor owls. No need for them to fly all the way across Europe when you wouldn't want to deal with their letters then, anyway. It would just tire their little wings out."

For all that she was still watching him with narrowed eyes, Jen's lips twitched once, twice; he just waited patiently, and finally an easy grin spread over her face. "Two years I've lived here, and there are still days I can't tell if you're joking or serious."

Narcissa grimaced beside him, and Jen widened her eyes and opened her mouth to take it back. She was not fast enough. "I'll have you know that I'm always Sirius."

"Can I come to Hogwarts with you?" Narcissa whined to Jen. "If getting away from him for a few months at a time is enough to make you forget that pun, I clearly need to do so, and I don't have many other places to do that in. I'll even hide in your trunk during the day if that's what it takes."

"Well, I'd offer to keep you in my closet, but I think it's too late for that," the girl laughed. "Regardless of how you want to interpret it." Her good mood restored, she tore into one of the letters and skimmed over it.

"So what does the Ministry want?" Sirius asked after a quick glance at the purple wax of the envelope.

"I…" Jen shook her head. Her expression was a study in disbelief. "I have a job interview."

"A job interview?" he repeated dumbly. "You've only just taken your OWLs; you haven't even received your marks yet. And you're not seventeen. Who in the Ministry would be offering you a job?"

"Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it's an interview for a job offer that is contingent on me getting the requisite NEWT scores." She rapped her fingertips on the wooden table for a few moments, only nodding when Kreacher delivered a plate loaded with food in front of her. "I have to go, though. Putting it off while I wait for my scores might reflect badly on me, something I can't afford if I want to work there in the future, and I really want to know just what has them so interested even though they know I still have two years before I can actually apply for a job."

"You still haven't told us who it was, you know."

She smirked at his comment. "I'm afraid I can't speak of it." And with that cryptic answer, she tore the other letter open.

Sirius took a bite of his own breakfast before glancing up, and what he saw made him stop mid-chew. Jen was glaring at the letter in front of her, eyes flashing with purple fire. Fire that was duplicated in yellows and reds when the sheet of parchment burst into flame in her hands. She let the letter float in the air and vanished the ashes, and only once all traces of it were gone did she return to her meal.

"Jen, what was that all about?" he asked, the concern in his question echoed by Narcissa.

"It's nothing. Just someone I am really not in the mood to talk to at the moment."

"If you want, I can tell them to stop bothering you—"

"No." The teenager closed her eyes and waited a minute; when she opened them, she had at least a semblance of calm. "This is just a mistake I made coming back to haunt me. That's all. I can deal with it on my own."

"All right," he finally said, reluctantly relenting. "If you're sure. You can always let us know if you decide you need any help with it."

She barked out a laugh, the sound much colder than his own. "If I can't handle  _this_ , I have much, much bigger problems."

The atmosphere around the table was noticeably strained for the next several minutes, and Sirius was never so happy to see the raven that flew into the room as he was right then. Loki, his goddaughter's pet, had never taken to him, but while he mostly ignored the bird and it ignored him, the familiar's presence always managed to cheer Jen up a little.

The white envelope in the raven's talons was a little unusual, though.

"Looks like your charm isn't quite up to snuff," she teased after glancing at the writing on the front. "I'm fairly sure you wouldn't think to add these people to the list of exceptions. Unless it only affects post being carried by owls specifically?"

He shook his head. European wizards primarily used owls to ferry letters around, yes, but other places preferred different birds, so the spell should have worked just fine. That was assuming Loki had not done something to avoid it, of course; how a bird, even a disturbingly smart bird like Jen's, could manipulate magic, he had no idea, but it wasn't the strangest possibility he could think of. As if understanding where his thoughts were headed, the bird looked at him from where it was perched on Jen's shoulder and gave him what he would swear was a taunting croak.

One hand mindlessly stroking the bird's breast feathers, Jen read through the letter, a frown appearing and growing as her eyes skimmed the page. "Aunt Cissy, have you noticed anything strange at Candyland recently?"

Sirius grimaced. The piebald witch's… preferences, if he were going to be polite about it… were something he did his best to pretend did not exist. It was an uncomfortable clash of morals, pitting basic decency against the need to protect his family, and the fact that the latter won out was a sign that for all he had tried to distance himself from his family's opinions in Hogwarts and even now, some of the lessons he had learned as a child were still too deeply ingrained to be gotten rid of. He was not the only one who had to wrestle with it; the rest of the family, bar Jen, had remarked on their own difficulties, and while Ted and Dora had not reported Narcissa to the DMLE – partly because they knew it would do little good considering the laws of their world were written to protect magicals first and foremost – Sirius knew that both Ted and Andi had left anonymous tips with the Muggle police about Candyland.

Jen was the only Black who had no problems with Narcissa's nature, but as a former child prostitute, her opinions on pedophilia were more than a little distorted.

"No, not really, but I haven't been by in the last few weeks, either. Why? And what specifically are you talking about?"

"That is a good question that I do not have the answer to."

"Whatever it is, I'm sure they can handle it themselves, can't they?" he suggested. He had pulled Jen out of that life as soon as he found her, and he really did not want her to get involved in it again. Honestly, he would be completely fine with her cutting all ties to her former colleagues and employees.

"If they could, they would have done so rather than bringing it to me." She mulled over the contents of the letter for a moment. "Nothing to do about it from here, though. I'll just have to head over and learn what's going on from the source."

* * *

The club was actually fairly quiet when Jen barged through the front door that afternoon. That was no great surprise; without the music for the dancers or the dull roar of the crowd as they watched the show or waited for their children of choice to be available once more, much of the noise the club normally created was absent. There were still some sounds coming from the innards of the club, obviously, but no more than she expected from sixteen to eighteen preteens playing around.

Throwing open the door that led to the main gallery, Jen's sudden entrance caused everyone to stop what they were doing and look at who had caused the interruption and why. "Mama!" several of them shouted, their voices filled with delight… and with relief.

Just what had been going on?

Her eyes panned over the crowd of kids as she looked for Paula or Drew, the two she had trained to take over in her absence, but neither of them were to be found. Fortunately, someone else was. "Sarah," she called out, waving the ten-year-old to follow her. "I got a letter from Richard this morning, but all he said was that he needed my help. What happened?"

"It's Steven, Mama. Lots of weird things go on around him. Stuff like what you can do."

What she could do? That… could be a problem. "Steven?" she asked instead. It had been a while since she spent more than a couple of hours at Candyland, but she could not recall anyone with that name.

The coltish brunette nodded. "He's new here. Five days, a week tops? He's…" She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment before she admitted, "He's scaring the clients. They can barely get his shirt off before his dresser's rattling or the bed starts shaking around. Drew tried to start him off with the ones who mostly like to watch and pet, but he won't even put up with that. We've all talked to him about it, but it's like he's never done this before."

Jen pursed her lips. This was starting to look ugly, and not just because she suspected the kid was a Muggleborn. "Where's his room?"

"Far back corner." Sarah looked away. "Dicky figured it would be best to keep him out of the way until you showed up. Do you think you can calm him down?"

"Maybe, but more likely he'll have to go somewhere else. It doesn't sound like he's taking to the job. Do you know anything about him before he showed up?" She shook her head sadly, and Jen sighed before plopping a hand on her head and giving the girl a strained smile. "Okay. That's okay. I'll take a look and see what's going on up in that head of his. Just leave it to me."

Sarah nodded quickly, shoulders slumping in relief.

Pulling her hand away, she wasted no time climbing the single set of stairs that led to the upper floor. Originally, this floor had been just a single cramped hallway, but once she got better at her magic, she had set out to expand and rearrange it so everyone would have more space and so they could increase their staff. The six weeks she had spent on that project had been an… interesting experience, and while she had eventually succeeded – though not without numerous fits and starts and periods when she had to completely rework a section she previously thought was fine – construction was something she was more than happy to leave to the professionals from now on.

As she walked down the hall to the room Sarah had directed her to, she could hear an unsteady thumping sound that just kept getting louder and louder. Turning the corner, she spotted Drew flinging himself out the door and pulling it shut behind him. "How bad is it?"

The dark-skinned boy glanced up at her voice and gave her a grateful smile. "Mama, thank god you're here. I can't handle this kid."

"Let me give it a try." Drew nodded and backed away, letting her come closer and push the door open. She immediately pulled it shut again to block the drawer that had shot out of the dresser at her head. "That bad, apparently."

"Yep. I don't think he's cut out for this line of work."

"That makes two of us." Though she kept one hand on the knob, Jen raised her right hand and sketched a rough shape in the air beside her head. Hieroglyphs were much more detailed than Futhark runes, but thankfully her will made up for her haste and lack of artistic ability. The ends of the blocky letter 'u' turned into hands, and the twisting loop above them softened the sharp edges into smooth curves and evened out the ends. She threw the door open once more and shoved her magic into the  _heka_  glyph.

A wave of translucent color pulsed out and away, washing over both her and the boy inside. The remaining dresser drawers stopped their banging, the books and broken toys dropped back to the ground, and the squeaking bed fell silent.

Nudging the door closed with a foot, she quirked an eyebrow at the kid who was huddled under his blanket, eyes wide in fear. "You've been scaring a bunch of people, Steven. That's not very nice."

"Who are you?" the boy demanded in a shaky voice. "What did you do?"

"I'm Jen, and I stopped you from making further trouble." Beside her, the symbol shimmered with a multitude of colors.  _Heka_  was not exactly a common rune; it functioned to direct raw magic, and while that made it useful for concentrating magic into a single area, the fact that hieroglyphs were predominantly used for wards meant there was little point in rebalancing an entire script just to decrease the charging time. The way she was using it now was normally an even worse strategy. By forcing the flow of magic back inward and preventing external manifestations of magic, she had forcibly repressed the boy's accidental magic, but it also negated her own spells in the process. Had she carved the rune into a solid surface and activated it there, she would be incapable of getting to it and dispelling the magic, leaving a magical 'dead zone' unless someone came along with a heavy enough object that the surface could be damaged and the rune effaced.

Thankfully, the characters used for runic casting were more transient and could be canceled by the creators with a focused thought, else she could have sentenced herself to a life as Muggle.

Steven did not seem to know whether to be more scared of her or the destruction his own accidental magic had wrought, and rather than come closer and tip the balance away from her advantage, Jen propped herself up against the wall next to the doorway. "How did you even get here, kid?"

"A guy took me from the park. He gave me some candy, and then I woke up in the boot of his car." Fat tears dripped from the boy's eyes down his cheeks, and apparently bolstered by her sympathetic gaze, he added, "He said my parents didn't want me anymore and told him to take me away, but I think he was lying."

"I think he was, too. Do you want to go home?"

Steven sniffled and nodded.

Jen gave him a weak smile, other emotions churning out of sight beneath the surface. "It's a good thing I'm here, then. You see, I have some very special gifts, and with them I can make sure you'll be home by dinner." He perked up at her promise, even going so far as to give her a watery smile. "Even better, you won't even remember any of this. It'll all just be a bad dream." And not even that.

"Okay," he said.

"Good boy." Narrowing her eyes at the  _heka_  symbol, she sent a thought at it that shattered it into motes of light. A wave of her hand and a bolt of scarlet light had the boy tipping over to slump bonelessly on top of his bed. "That's the simple bit done," she muttered to herself as she stepped closer. She laid her hand on his forehead, more a gesture of apology than because it was necessary for her spell, and she flipped backwards through his memories, shredding them into psychic confetti until she got the part where his kidnapper pulled him out of the car. From there she conjured up an entirely new set of memories, rewriting history so that he spent his week in a drug-induced stupor. A savior, half-remembered, who found him and took him away from the house was added at the end, the memory then trailing off into the black of unconsciousness.

Standing straight, she turned to the door, eyes narrowed. It was time to get this little one back home, but before that, she had a few more questions she needed answers to.

Drew was still outside the doorway when she left the room, but he had been joined at some point by Richard Hutchins, her ex-boss and the owner of Candyland Club. "You got him all straighten out, then?" he asked hopefully.

"To an extent." Richard nodded until she added, "I'm going to take him to the police station in a few minutes so they can ship him back home."

"You're what?!"

"I've already erased his memory of his time here, don't worry." She cocked her head, and her grin took on a sinister edge. "How much of his history do you know?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," he said.

Jen nodded, and then her hand lashed out to grab the front of his shirt. Whirling around, she flung him into the wall and lifted him until his feet were reaching desperately for the floor, the weightlessness charm she had cast upon him allowing her to demonstrate her apparent feat of strength. Negating the majority of his weight did nothing to change the fact that the remainder was supported solely by her fist where it was slowly burying itself in the soft flesh of the floor of his mouth. "Liar," she purred. "That was far too quick a evasion, and obvious besides. You knew that Strom snatched him off the street, didn't you?"

"It's… not that big… a deal," the brown-haired man panted, trying to pull himself off her fist.

"Not that big a deal? Richard, surely you remember our agreement. The only kids we hire on are runaways or those who want to work here. We don't go snatching every child we spot walking around."

Taking as deep a breath as she would allow him, he did his best to glare down at her. "And then you left. Whatever deal we had doesn't matter anymore. I have to keep up the numbers somehow; a bunch of kids retired this past year because they got too old, and all the guys who bring us new talent were coming up empty. I had to do something."

"And you thought kidnapping was an option?" She lifted her right hand and wiggled her fingers in preparation. "We've talked about this before. Bringing in runaways who are used to the life means we have happy kids who do the job without complaints. The money keeps rolling in, the kids have a fun time, no one gets hurt. Everybody wins. Kidnapping? Kidnapping makes people care. It brings in the bobbies to do a little digging. It gets people to pay more attention to what's going on around them." Jen sneered at him. "Having fewer kids to run the club is something we've dealt with before, and eventually we'll find some more. It won't hurt the business. The attention we'll get from a bunch of kidnappings, on the other hand, will.

"You know what I did to the last group of people who tried to hurt my kids?" Richard shook his head at the apparent non sequitur. "I killed them. It wasn't quick, and it wasn't painless. Your stupidity is now threatening my kids." Lightning crackled from her fingertips and arced between her fingers and backward to connect with the skin of her forearm. It was far from the most effective way to murder the man in front of her, and if she did decide to end his life, she would use another method, but the theatrics would serve to get his attention. And they had succeeded beautifully if the stain on the front of his trousers was any indication. "Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you, too."

"I'm the one whose name is on the bank account," he tried desperately. "And you need an adult around to handle any problems that crop up. It's not like you're spending your time here to take care of it, and people won't listen to a twelve-year-old."

"There are a few people I could get to replace you fairly easily. People who are devoted to me and will do what I say when I say and without question. People I can count on a lot more than I can you, it seems." And even if she couldn't use Rita or Eddie for this, she could always make one someone she could.

Richard's face was turning pasty now. "The finders are all used to working with me. If I'm not around, they'll think it's a sting and won't talk to you. That means no new kids, and then this place  _will_  fail."

That was an angle she had not thought of, and if she were honest, he had a good point. Candyland was a refuge for the kids like Paula and her who had been kicked out of or ran away from the homes they were sent to, and listening to the horror stories Paula and several other of her children told, she did not want to risk sending them back into the cruel hands of the system. Still, she could not just admit he was right. If she did, he might not accept the rule she was now laying down.

Richard was still in the mindset that he was the owner, she was the employee, and she did what he told her. It was time for that paradigm to change.

"I think most of your finders would recognize me just fine," she countered in a soft voice, "and then I could introduce them to the new owner. It would be a minor inconvenience at most." Cold sweat sprang up on the man's forehead. "But congratulations. That's good enough to keep you breathing this time." Dismissing the charm, she let him fall to the floor. "Take note of what I said. This time. If I hear so much as a whisper that you've done something this stupid and destructive in the future, you won't have to worry about finding replacement employees. You won't have to worry about anything ever again." She bent down to stare into his eyes, a malevolent grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Have I made myself clear?"

"C-Crystal."

"Good." The door to Steven's room opened at a glance, and she stepped inside just long enough to float the boy into her arms. "Drew, come with me."

The pair of retired prostitutes turned the corner and were in sight of the stairwell before Drew spoke. "Would you really kill him?" His voice was not scared, but he did sound a little unsure. Probably he, too, was considering the logistical issues that would come about if Richard died.

"With the way he was about to draw a bunch of heat down on us? Yes." She reached over to ruffle the boy's hair. "You know I'll do whatever it takes to protect you guys."

"Yeah, I do, but…"

Drew trailed off, unsure of just what he wanted to say. Jen just sighed. "If he doesn't try to screw everyone else over for a few more quid, it won't be a problem. I don't want to kill him, and as long as he doesn't make me, he'll be fine. I still want you and Paula to keep an eye on him, though, especially where and how he gets any new hires. Draft some of the other kids to help you; get them all involved if you want. The more eyes on him, the better the chance we'll catch him if he tries anything, and if everyone's watching him, he will be less likely to try it in the first place."

"We'll get right on it, Mama." She smiled down at him, but the expression was returned with one that was still timid. "Don't take this the wrong way, but that was really scary."

"I suppose it was, but it had a purpose. Do you know how I kept all the big, bad monsters away from here for so long?" Though Drew shook his head, she could tell from the gleam in his eye that he had figured it out already. "I made sure I was bigger and badder."

* * *

With a small sigh, Jen relaxed deeper into the cushions. Dealing with the rest of the fallout of Richard's bout of incredible stupidity had, unfortunately, not gone as smoothly as she hoped it would. Oh, the big hurdles had been simple enough: once she transfigured herself into a form unrecognizable as her own, she woke Steven up in a house she had 'borrowed' without the owner's knowledge, cajoled him into telling her the entire story as he remembered it – which gave her the opportunity to make sure his memories had been properly rewritten – and led him to the police station. Her duty was meant to end there with dropping him off so the bobbies could get him back to his family.

But no, that was when things had gotten sticky. It seemed that Steven's family, while not rich by any means, still had enough money to make a scene about their missing son. There was also a reward being offered, but much as that money would help Candyland and offer delicious irony besides, the process to claim it would have required that she actually set up a proper identity for her disguise. Because it was just a mask, there would be no background details for the police to confirm, and so she had passed on the reward when a helpful officer informed her about it.

It was her refusal to claim the money that had made the department suspicious, and she could see why. Most people who had gone to the trouble and the risk of saving a kidnapped child would be willing to take the reward, regardless of whether it was their primary motivation, and considering the police had no leads as to the identity of the original kidnapper, they were understandably skeptical of her story. It had taken some fast talking and faster compulsion and confusion charms for them to let the issue go and allow her to make her escape.

A familiar core stepped out of the fireplace, and Jen cocked her head thoughtfully as the witch it was part of started climbing the stairs to the library. "Bad day at the office?" she asked when Dora walked in and flopped down face-first onto the other sofa.

"Not bad," the metamorph muttered, her voice muffled. Turning her head toward Jen, she continued, "Just long, and meeting up with some of the Order afterwards was aggravating."

"They are that, aren't they?"

"I don't mean that hanging around them was irritating. It was what happened once it was all over." Sighing at Jen's expression of curiosity, Dora pushed herself upright. "After that ambush a few weeks ago, they've started to move to more of a squad-like setup so each team can meet separately and Apparate wherever they're needed. It's to keep them from all falling into another trap. I volunteered to help them out with practicing fighting as a group, and this afternoon I was working with Remus Lupin's team."

"Remus Lupin," Jen repeated, rolling the name around in her head. "Isn't that Sirius's werewolf friend?"

"That's him, all right." A blush stained her cheeks before it was quickly repressed. "I might have fancied him a bit."

"Why?" Jen asked in honest confusion. From her own single experience with the wizard, she had found nothing attractive. "Wait,  _'fancied_ '? You don't fancy him now?"

Dora rolled over onto her back and glared at the ceiling. "No, that died a fiery death."

"What happened?"

"We got to talking after the meeting, and he seemed interested in me, so I went ahead and asked him if he wanted to go out and get a drink or two, see how the night turned out. He never actually said no, just kind of stammered about how he was so much older and didn't know what other people would think if we were seen together. I figured he was playing hard to get or maybe was trying to be a gentleman and didn't want anyone to start any derogatory rumors about me. I didn't think it was to spare himself any grief because, well…" Sitting up, Dora made her spiky hair cascade down to her shoulders in blonde ringlets, and her breasts swelled until they were nearly popping out the top of her blouse. "When an older guy has someone looking like this on their arm, the only thing other wizards think about is how envious they are."

"If you gave him a preview like that, I really am shocked he turned you down!" Jen laughed.

Giving her a small shrug, Dora's face grew pinched as she reverted the changes. "Well, he did. It's fine; I'm done with that."

"Some guy spurning your advances doesn't really sound like a fiery death," she pointed out. "And I know you. Even if you got turned down a dozen times, if you still fancied him, you'd keep going after him. So what aren't you telling me?"

"Instead of telling me he wasn't interested, he tried to give excuses for why it wouldn't work. He said he was too old. So what? I've always had a thing for older guys, and considering our lifespan, fourteen years isn't that big a deal. Hell, thanks to the so-called Black Curse, he might wind up outliving me! He said he was poor. Money isn't everything. I'd rather be poor and in love than rich and stuck with someone picked out for… me… No offense," she hesitantly added as she seemed to recall just who she was talking to.

Jen waved the comment off.

"Yeah, well. And then he said he was too dangerous. Because he's a werewolf, I would be in too much danger."

"Okay…" She could see why he would think that. Years ago, back when she was still under Elsie's tutelage, she had an encounter with a werewolf that was absolutely terrifying. Before the siege of Hogsmeade, she would have agreed with Lupin, but slaughtering a dozen transformed werewolves made them far less intimidating than they had once been. "And that's what made you so mad?"

"You could say that." Dora's hair flashed to the same black as the rest of the family's for an instant before returning to its normal cheerful pink. "What do I do for a living, Jen?"

"You're an Auror."

"That's right. I am an Auror. I spend my time hunting down dark wizards. For me, getting in a fight for my life is just a regular day at the office." She snarled and leapt off the sofa, pacing restlessly like a caged lioness. "But no, a lone werewolf is clearly too much for me to handle. Never mind that there is an office in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures that specializes in capturing werewolves when they're transformed. An office where the workers have a whole lot less combat experience and less training than I do. Nope. I'm just so incompetent that I wouldn't be able to safely restrain him. Nor do I have the insight or common decency to keep an eye on the calendar so I can give the guy a little peace and quiet immediately before and after the full moon. Or maybe I'm just so stupid that I'd think he was a giant doggy and would let him out to play fetch with him."

"Now I know why you said your fancy died a fiery death," Jen muttered, eyeing the ranting woman warily.

"Yep." Dora fell backward back onto her couch with a groan. "That's why. I can put up with a lot of things from guys I'm interested in, but implying I can't do my job? That's not one of them."

An awkward silence fell over them for several minutes. "Well," Jen finally suggested in a forcibly chipper tone, "it could be worse. At least you didn't shout all of this at him while the rest of the group was watching."

"I did. They were."

"Oh. In that case, yeah, that went about as bad as it possibly could."

All her attempt at comforting earned her was a pillow flung at her head.

* * *

**Maybe it's just me, but that's one of the bigger reasons I dislike Tonks's moping in book 6. Go ahead, tell an FBI agent or a soldier that you two can't be together because you're too dangerous for them to handle. Let me know how that works out for you. It's even worse here since Dora has proven she's a badass by taking on the Big Bad and dealing a not-insignificant amount of damage to him. Seriously, who's more dangerous: the timid werewolf who's never actually hurt anyone or the megalomaniacal Dark Lord with a triple-digit body count?**

**Also, foreshadowing. Foreshadowing** _**everywhere** _ **.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	5. Dancing Fool

**MissGardenia:**  With an attitude like that, I think you'll like what I eventually have planned for the kids of Candyland.

 **Disclaimer:**  Despite claiming how much he hated staying at Privet Drive all summer long, did Harry ever go out and spend a day with Ron or Hermione once he knew about the Knight Bus? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 5  
** **Dancing Fool**

"I have to admit," Jen said as she looked out from the balcony over the throng of people jumping and dancing to the beat of the music below her, "of all the places you might choose to meet, a dance club was not one I was expecting. I didn't even think you knew what these were, let alone that you would ever be found inside one."

"My life may be entirely in the magical world now, but that doesn't mean I didn't grow up among Muggles," Lily pointed out.

"Actually, I was referring to the fact that you're the mother of a teenage son and therefore not the clientele a place like this caters to. The drinks those five guys have bought you so far tonight say you're not unwelcome, though, I suppose."

The woman blushed the faintest amount at that. "While I may be thirty-six, in Muggle terms that means I look like I'm still in my late twenties. And you don't look like you're not yet sixteen, either." She smiled weakly. "I bet several people think we're sisters or something."

 _More_   _likely the something else_. Jen tipped the glass in her own hand toward Lily nonetheless. How the older witch had attracted more admirers than she had, she had no idea, but right now she found that little fact more amusing than insulting. Lily's displeasure that Jen was receiving drinks at all despite her age helped. "This is certainly a more fun place to talk than a lot of others would be. Why, it's almost enough to make me forget that you thought it your place to try to take me to task for what I told the Scrimgeour." Her smile turned decidedly frosty. "Almost."

"And I apologized for that in the letter I sent the next day, didn't I? I hadn't realized how… accusatory the way I phrased that first one could be taken until later," Lily explained.

"You apologized for the phrasing, not the sentiment behind it."

The matriarch of House Potter took a fortifying breath. "No, I suppose I didn't. But I was right, too, wasn't I? You did lie about what happened when you and Danny fought You-Know-Who."

"Everything I told the Aurors was the truth," she shot back. Well, mostly. She had left several things out, but the only outright, explicit lie she could recall was that she hit Voldemort with a Concussion Hex rather than a runic curse that would bind his soul together.

"But the story Danny tells is very different, and I know what he looks like when he's trying to come up with a lie. He was telling the truth."

"That is quite the conundrum," she agreed, grin taking on a dark edge. "I suppose the question you have to ask yourself, then, is this: Which child will you believe in this time?"

Lily grimaced as that barb sank deep, just as she meant it to. "That's not fair."

"Life's not fair. I learned that lesson a long, long time ago." Finally turning to face Lily fully, Jen wondered aloud, "The more I think about it, the stranger it seems that you would want to meet here of all places. What made you pick it?"

"You're not old enough to be allowed inside, even if you did have some kind of Muggle identification." The redhead glanced down at her lap, almost as if in shame, before looking back up at Jen's surprised expression. "I thought – I  _hoped_  – you would write me back saying you wouldn't be able to get in, but instead you waltzed up without a care in the world. You had to have used magic on the doorman. I…" Lily chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. "We know so little about each other. I just… I needed to know what you would do, how you would react."

"Clever," Jen muttered quietly, unheard against the deep bass rumbles coming from the speakers around them. "Very clever." Forcing her grin wide, she held out her arms in invitation and asked in a louder voice, "And after that little glimpse inside my head, what do you think?"

"I don't think you'd really like the answer to that question."

 _Perhaps, perhaps not. We aren't exactly working toward the same goal here, after all._  Rather than reveal that thought, she simply let her arms fall. "Too bad."

"Why, Jennifer?" asked Lily in a beseeching voice. "Just because he's a Muggle doesn't mean you have the right to do whatever you want to him. He has rights, too, no matter what the Dark may say."

Jen had to fight not to snicker. It was not because he was a Muggle that she used her magic on him to get what she wanted; it was because he didn't matter one way or another to her. Not that she would tell Lily that, not when it gave her such a beautiful opening. "Don't pretend that you care about Muggles." When Lily opened her mouth to assert just that, she continued, "After all, what is a squib but a Muggle born to wizards? Once I was 'safely'"—she could not hold back the cruel smirk—"in the Dursleys' hands, did you ever think about me? Did you spare a moment to remember your poor, magicless daughter?"

Lily hesitated a beat too long. "Yes."

"Oh ho, just yes?" she crowed. "No  _'How could you think I wouldn't?'_  or  _'Not a day went by when I didn't_ '? Just a simple  _'yes_ '?" Her laugh was harsh and cold, the sound only making Lily's expression more mournful. "A bit of friendly advice for you: Never try your hand at poker. A mirror would be a better bluffer.

"But we aren't here to talk about the past, are we?" Folding her hands on top of her belly, she leaned back in her chair. "Why did you call me out here? I presume it wasn't just to chide me about your son's embellishments. Not if you have any sense at all."

"Can't I just want to talk?" the woman asked quietly.

"No. Or, perhaps more accurately, I have no reason to stay if that's the entire reason. Our relationship is not a personal one," she explained to Lily's gaping mouth, "but rather a business arrangement. You offer me something I want and in return ask me for something you want. If you don't have anything to give me, I see no reason to stick around." She stood. "Have a good evening, Lily."

"Wait, wait." The redhead scrubbed her face with one hand, and even without looking into the older witch's head Jen was almost positive that Lily was trying to figure out something to say to make her stay. Counting silently, she hit five and started walking. "It's the Order. And you. How they view you."

"They don't like me," she guessed with a smile, not bothering to turn around and face Lily. "That's not really a surprise, is it?"

"It's more than that. Most of them…" The woman who gave birth to her – calling her 'mother' in any fashion was giving her far, far too much credit – sighed and admitted, "Most of them think you're a spoiled brat. They weren't impressed that you ignored the invitation to join us, and when Sirius said it was because you had better things to do? They took it as you blowing us off."

Lily's expression was the tiniest bit hopeful, as if she thought Jen would say that was not the real reason. It was too much for Jen to leave intact. "I didn't miss that meeting of your little club because I had lots of other things to do, and what I was doing certainly wasn't important. I did blow you off, though, and it's because I don't see much point in the Order's very existence." Watching the woman grow flushed from irritation with no little amusement, she added, "I think we've already had this conversation before, actually. I put much more trust in the Ministry than I do in Dumbledore to keep me and anyone else safe. When You-Know-Who attacked Hogsmeade, it certainly wasn't the Order that showed up to drive him and the Death Eaters off."

"We were a little busy elsewhere."

"Yes, running straight into a trap. I'm aware. How's James coming along with using his peg leg?" she asked with a curious tilt of her head.

For once, Lily's face displayed the true depths of what she was feeling. That the emotion in question was anger was not a surprise; Elsie had often told her she had a talent for driving people into a rage, though the Haitian woman generally followed it with an admonishment not to exercise that particular talent quite so freely. "He lost his leg. To Bellatrix Lestrange. Who you're still claiming as your mother. How do you think he's doing?!"

Jen bit her tongue. For all that she liked getting a rise out of people, saying what she was thinking would probably push the redhead far enough over the edge that curses would be exchanged. That on its own was not a problem – she would put money on her being able to outfight Lily Potter without even needing to dip into all the dark magic she had been learning over the years, especially this last one – but covering up the evidence of that fight? That would be more complicated. Locking the doors in the middle of their spat to keep any of the Muggles from running away, repairing the walls and floors, wiping everyone's memory, finding and sabotaging the tapes for the cameras…

That was all more of a hassle than she really wanted to deal with.

Instead she smothered the smile that wanted to appear on her face and walked back to the railing of the balcony, snatching one of Lily's cocktails on her way past. It wasn't like the other witch was drinking any of them. "Jennifer! You're not old enough to—"

"Of all the things I could be doing right now, trust me when I say underage drinking is far from the worst." Lily had nothing to say to that, so the black-haired witch leaned against the railing. "You said only most of the Order had mistaken me for a spoiled brat. What about the rest?"

"They think you're trying to defeat You-Know-Who so you can take his place."

The sip of margarita she had just taken promptly choked her. "They what?"

"They think you're angling to become a Dark Lady. With them citing your apparent lack of morals"—Lily's nose turned up the slightest bit, probably a subconscious action—"they have gained a little bit of traction with the rest of the Order."

"My apparent lack of morals." Thin fingers played up and down the stem of the glass as Jen tried to recall the names of the Order's members Sirius and Cissy had told her, specifically which would bear her some sort of grudge. Dumbledore, obviously; she knew that he feared her rising in power thanks to the prophecy he had heard from Trelawney. Given the attitude of the average Order member, though, if he had said anything, the majority would be against her rather than just a few. The Aurors, Shacklebolt and Moody, she had few if any dealings with, and Dora had given them her seal of approval, anyway. Snape liked her. James and Lily, although it sounded like one of them was revising her opinion. Augusta Longbottom— Ah. And speaking of guardians who might wish her ill… "This faction is led by Longbottom and the Weasleys, I take it?"

"I wouldn't say they lead it, but they are definitely vocal. Molly's become almost militant since Bill, her eldest, passed away in that ambush you were speaking so lightheartedly about." Was that glare supposed to shame her? "Augusta has… Well, I think she might be feeding some of Molly's anger, but I don't believe she is doing so with the intention of aiming it at you."

Jen shrugged. "Longbottom hates me because of what Bellatrix did to her son and daughter-in-law. She hates all the Blacks for it, too, according to Sirius and Aunt Narcissa. What did I do that has the Weasleys so up in arms, though?"

"Humiliating their son is almost certainly part of it." Jen nodded. That was what she thought the reasoning might be, but it was nice to have confirmation, no matter how insignificant the inciting incident was in the grand scheme of things. "And like I said, she's looking for someone to blame. You claim to be the child of a Death Eater, and supposedly you come across as Dark to those of her children who know you."

"None of her children know me," she denied. Nor, honestly, did she know or wish to know them. "Besides, their devotion to Dumbledore is so slavish it's scary. They probably think anyone who doesn't kiss the hem of his robes is Dark."

A grimace crossed Lily's face at that mental image. "Please don't say something like that again. Even if you don't like him, you know Dumbledore would never act like that. That's something You-Know-Who would make his followers do."

 _That was the comparison I was going for, yes_. The Weasley twins had been expelled from Hogwarts because they chose to view the Ministry's takeover of Hogwarts as an usurpation rather than chasing out a criminal who meddled with people's minds, which was a good indication of just what lessons they had learned growing up, and even though actual evidence supporting the DMLE's accusations had been released, Cissy reported that the Weasley matriarch had lashed out almost rabidly at their mere mention. That certainly sounded like cultish devotion to her.

She did not get that upset about people denigrating the Old Ways, and she occasionally played host to an actual god.

"I don't know. You-Know-Who has an ego, all right, but I can't see that telling his followers to bow down and worship him would be worth the trouble."  _'Herding cats'_ was how Voldemort had described keeping the Death Eaters in line during their single friendly conversation, and he probably avoided making any demands that would make that task more difficult and would serve no real purpose. Shrugging the memory of that night away, Jen asked, "Just what has this little group proposed to do about me, then, if they are so terrified of what I might become?"

"Right now, nothing. They're still trying to convince other people that they haven't taken leave of their senses." Lily frowned before hesitantly asking, "But you wouldn't really do something like that, anyway, would you? Try to take over the country?"

Admitting that she had considered just that while contemplating what she wanted to do with the rest of her life was probably a bad idea, wasn't it? "You don't sound very confident in me," she said instead. "I'm hurt. But no, as much as 'Dark Lady Black' has a nice ring to it, especially when paired with some suitably respectful manner of address like 'Your Majesty', I'm afraid I have to disappoint." A gentle chuckle bubbled up. "I'm the heiress of one of the most influential Houses in the Wizengamot. I already have power, or I will in the next few decades when Sirius finally decides to step down and let me run the show. What need have I to wage a bloody revolution just for a little more?"

From the way Lily's eyes were widening and her mouth was falling open, that was apparently not the answer she was looking for.

"That's… That's it? The only reason you wouldn't go do something that…  _evil_  is because what you would get out of it wouldn't be enough to go through the trouble?!" The woman shook her head as if to scrub away her memory of the last half-minute. "Jennifer, I shouldn't have to explain how awful that is! How could you even say something like that?! Don't you know how people are suffering right now because of what You-Know-Who is doing? And you see nothing wrong with that?"

It was a serious effort on Jen's part not to roll her eyes at Lily's overblown outpouring of emotion. For all the dramatics, little had happened so far in this war; until the attack the Death Eaters launched on Hogsmeade, the number of civilian casualties had still been in the single digits, and the group had seemingly vanished following that outing. The country was still very much in the opening stages of this fight.

But it was not the statistics that were of the greatest relevance here. No, right now Jen had an opportunity, an opportunity to finally force into Lily's head the ugly truth of the situation that the older witch had so far been intent on ignoring. "I feel like we've had this conversation before, too. I care about myself, my House, and my allies. I told you this the very first time we sat down to talk. Have you forgotten that already? Or perhaps," she added, watching Lily's face carefully, "you just didn't believe me. What is the point of asking your questions or trying to work out who I am if you just ignore the answers?"

"It doesn't change the fact that that isn't how a good person should see the world! It isn't right!"

"No, what you mean to say is it isn't  _Light_. But the Blacks aren't Light, are we?" she asked, the question more rhetorical than anything else.

"You were a Potter for a long time before you were a Black." Tears were now dripping down Lily's cheeks. "Even if we didn't raise you, you should still be better than this."

Anger sizzled at the edges of Jen's mind. As if their abandonment of her was not reason enough for her to despise them! She held up her arms in a gesture of feigned surrender. "I am but the product of my history. It is the life I have lived that has forged me into the person I am. You think I am such a terrible person? Perhaps, just perhaps, you should stop and consider what experiences they must have been to make me who I am today." She sneered. "And who should really be held responsible for allowing those events to take place at all."

"Our mistakes don't mean you didn't have choices."

"Yet does not the world one lives in determine what choices she has? Do you want to know what my choice was?" She did not give Lily a chance to answer. "My choice has always been, and will always be, to survive. To thrive, even. Without that, there are no choices to come later."

"And that excuses your… your… self-centeredness?" Lily demanded.

The smile Jen gave the redhead was cold and sharp. "Survival is an inherently selfish decision. If I can only stay afloat by shoving someone else under the water, then that's just the way it goes."

"You're better than this, Jenny," Lily whispered again, shaking her head in disappointment.

At the sound of that name, the fake smile on Jen's face vanished; the mask her face became gave no hint of the rage roaring inside her like wildfire. That was something else they had discussed, the only real rule of their conversations. She set the glass in her hand on the table and walked toward the stairs. "Goodbye, Lady Potter."

"Jennifer? Jennifer!"

* * *

For the next week, a letter came to Jen daily from Lily Potter. She burned all of them without reading.

* * *

Green fire billowed around her as Jen stepped out of the Floo. Little had changed since the last time she had visited the Lovegoods' home: the printing press was still churning out magazines, the kitchen was still cluttered with books and statuettes. The infestation of mistletoe was gone, but that was no great surprise.

"Luna?" she called out.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and a missile of female flesh slammed into her and wrapped arms around her neck. Interestingly, the hair in front of her face was not blonde, but chestnut brown.

"Thank Merlin you're here!" Tracey exclaimed. "I need someone with some semblance of sanity. It's all been crazy animals that don't exist and weird foods and half-riddles with them. I feel like I'm losing my mind!"

Luna came down this time with an indulgent smile on her face, as though she had heard this complaint before and now only found it amusing. It contrasted nicely with the mock outrage of her voice. "Don't believe a word she says. It's all filthy lies."

"I don't know," Jen joked. "I've never known Tracey to blow things completely out of proportion. I mean, it isn't like she has any flair for the dramatic at all…"

The brunette pulled away with a huff, though Luna was quick to fill the void she left behind. "What is it, pick on Tracey day?"

"Of course it is. Didn't you look at the calendar?" Jen just laughed harder at the sour expression on her best friend's face. "But what are you even doing here? I thought you were spending the summer with Morag."

Most Hogwarts students would have spent their summer holidays at their own home, but Tracey's situation was a little complicated. After her grandfather died of a heart attack – a fate Jen might have played a minor role in – following him trying to arrange for her to be married and subsequently murdered, Tracey had taken on her rightful position of Head of House Davis. The issue that immediately arose was that she was a Halfblood, and her aunts and uncles and cousins, blood purists all, would never allow that to stand. Until she turned seventeen and could claim the legal powers of the position that went along with the social ones, including the authority to disown current members of the family, staying in her childhood home was a terrible folly.

"I was," Tracey replied, "but then her grandmother got sick and needed to stay with them, and they only have the one spare room, and I didn't want to intrude. Padma's in India, so she was out, and while I'm not a total stranger to the Muggle world, I don't think I would have been comfortable staying with Justin. Kenneth was willing to let me stay with him, but he's still living with his parents right now, and apparently his mother didn't like the idea of an eighteen-year-old guy offering to let a teenage girl spend the summer."

Which, Jen knew, might not be a baseless concern. Tracey had once held quite the fancy for Kenneth, and while it had guttered out on its own, there was always the chance it could flare up again in the right conditions. "And Susan? I know she planned to stick around her house for most of the summer."

"There's no way I'm getting in the middle of that mess," Tracey said with a shake of her head. "Her aunt is the Minister of Magic, remember? That means she has two Aurors on bodyguard duty at pretty much all times, and since Susan's both her niece and the official Head of House Bones, she pulled some strings and got two more assigned to Susan for the hols. And apparently there are Hit Wizards stopping by every so often for something, Susan didn't know what, so no. I'm good without having half a dozen strangers pointing their wands at me every time I walk to a different room."

"She asked her mother if she could stay with her, too," added Luna.

"Yeah, but she's staying with old Hogwarts friends as well," Tracey explained, "and there really wasn't any space. Her friends have three kids of their own who are apparently a huge handful."

"You could have stayed with me, you know. It's just Sirius and Aunt Cissy and me living in a house meant for more than a dozen. We have plenty of space."

Tracey frowned. "Yeah, but first you were on the Continent for a while—"

"Less than a week."

"—and you said your family is involved in the war, which I want no part in, and…" She grimaced. "And you're going to be dealing with a bunch of betrothal contracts just next week, and no thank you. That's drama I am more than happy to avoid right now. One of the best parts of being an underage Head of House is that it's considered in poor taste to send me any offers of marriage until I can legally accept or decline them."

While Tracey was talking about the marriage offers, Luna had pulled away from their embrace and now was scowling. "Why do you have to go through with that?" she asked, her question less a demand and more a plea. "Can't you just… just tell them all to go away and leave you alone?"

"No, I can't," Jen sighed. Her girlfriend's motives for that particular suggestion were incredibly obvious, but as much as the blonde wanted it, things just weren't that simple. "That's not the way this societal game is played."

"Hang the stupid game! If you really didn't want this, you could tell your godfather to reject all of them! We both know he'd do it." Luna's expression of outrage crumbled. "But you won't, will you? You don't actually have a problem with being set up to marry some random man."

"It's not cut and dry like that. There are expectations I have to fulfill."

"Why?!"

"Because she can't just think about herself," Tracey gently cut in. "She has to do what's best for her House, too, and sometimes that means doing things you don't really want to do but know still need to be done."

Luna shot her guest a watery glare. "And how is Jen getting married a House issue?!"

"Betrothal contracts aren't just about how the wedding itself is supposed to go," Jen said, pulling Luna over to the kitchen portion of the room. She sat the blonde beside her, and to their surprise, Tracey chose the chair on Luna's other side. "They also involve exactly what the bride price will be. Physical property, business interests, rare items or knowledge, liquid wealth; all of that will go to the House of Black as a whole, not to me individually, though as I am the heir, that distinction gets a little blurry. There's also the political landscape to consider. Whomever I marry, his House and mine will then have an informal alliance at the very least. How will the House that I will be marrying into, or hopefully that will be marrying into mine, affect our relationships with the allies we already have in the Wizengamot? What new allies will it make available?" She patted Luna's hand. "There's a reason arranging political marriages generally takes years. It's a very involved and complicated process."

"And that's without talking about what to do about kids," added Tracey. "That's part of the contract, too, or it can be, anyway. How many kids are supposed to be born, how much time they'll spend with each House growing up, who will be the primary and secondary heir to which House. It can get pretty invasive before it's all finished and signed."

"Thankfully those are terms I mostly won't have to worry about meeting." Jen's grin was weak and humorless, and it quickly changed to a grimace. "It's our custom that we don't agree to any contract that details requirements about children. Our rate of miscarriages and stillbirths is just too high. The only one we might have to talk about is which kid gets the Black name, which is why Sirius and I agreed we'd give more weight to non-heirs who would be more open to giving up their name for ours. My chances of bearing a second child who could carry on the Black legacy are… not great. Honestly, I might be lucky just to have one. That Great-Aunt Walburga had both Sirius and his late brother Regulus is practically a miracle."

That was a wrinkle she really did not like considering. No one who knew the truth about her heritage was sure how the blood adoption to make her Bellatrix's daughter would affect her ability to carry children to term, but they were not exactly optimistic. Even if she had 'inherited' that trait to a lesser extent, it could still pose problems. Had Andi been born to any other family, Dora would be the third-oldest of a dozen siblings rather than an only child; for Jen to be pregnant even half as much would be unusual. And, just to complicate matters even more, she also had Black blood on her paternal side from her great-grandmother Dorea that had been present all her life, not just for the past two years.

"But couldn't you get around the children thing somehow?" Luna suggested, her voice almost desperate. "Adopt or something? Then you'd have an heir to continue the Black name without needing to get married."

She and Tracey, the only one of her friends to know the truth about her parentage, exchanged a significant look. That was exactly what she had done to become the 'true-born' heiress of Black, but there were several factors in her favor there, not the least of which was that even if Bellatrix were able to publicly deny their relationship, the woman's madness was so well known that no one would believe her. "They would need to be my children if they were to have any chance of fending off claims that whomever I named my heir was ineligible to become the new Lord or Lady Black. I've heard that the goblins have some magic that can trick blood-based lineage tests and pass on major traits to a child"—Tracey quickly suppressed a smile; visiting Gringotts to undergo a blood adoption was the explanation she had given the girl for how she could suddenly be Bellatrix's daughter—"but I don't know how true those rumors are, nor what it would take to convince them to do it. Even after it was all done, I would still need to explain how I could go nine months without anyone knowing I was pregnant and why the father did not remember sleeping with me. Unless I could explain all that away, all I would be doing would be setting up that child to be accused of attempted Line Theft or something."

"Besides, we all know why you're really objecting to all this," Tracey said with a small laugh. "Just because Jen will be getting married doesn't mean you two can't sleep together, you know. It's expected for people in arranged marriages like this to have somebody on the side."

"Expected?!" Luna echoed in total disbelief.

Jen shrugged. "Like we said, marriages like this are almost about politics and business more than they are about the marriage itself. Back in the Middle Ages, it was actually legal to have a pseudo-marriage with a concubine in addition to the real marriage, and while that was dropped from our laws many centuries ago, the custom itself is still around. I probably should have mentioned that before," she added thoughtfully.

"I…" A slew of emotions swept over Luna's face too fast for Jen to make out any one specifically. "I know you're trying to help, Tracey, but it doesn't." She turned to Jen. "I told you last year, but I don't share. I'm not going to settle for being a mistress. Whatever man or woman I wind up making a life with, they have to be with me, and just me."

"Well, enough about my problems," Jen said. Anything to get them off this subject before it got even more uncomfortable. "How have things been otherwise? Your father's magazine selling well?"

Luna hesitated before admitting, "Not so much. With everyone so scared about You-Know-Who and the war, a lot of people have canceled their subscriptions. It's not a big surprise; Daddy said that happened last time, and we made it out fine. It's just… Last time, Mum was around, too, and he said they relied on the rewards from her research and help from her family to get through the roughest patches, and we don't have that to fall back on anymore." In a bright voice that was obviously forced, she hurriedly continued, "But I'm at Hogwarts most of the time now, and Mum's family paid for my education after she passed away, so that does make things a little easier."

"Is there anything Sirius and I can do to help? I know he wouldn't mind. He really enjoyed coming over for Christmas Eve last year." Luna shook her head, but she pressed on, "At least let me buy your books for you this year. Consider it your birthday present."

"My birthday isn't till October."

"Even better," Tracey commented. "No worrying about owl-ordering something while we're in school. I can chip in some gold, too. Mum and I are the only ones who have access to the Davis vault anymore," she explained a little uncomfortably when Luna turned to stare at her. "I blocked everyone else out. That much I'm allowed to do before I come of age. You can consider it a thank you for letting me crash here if you want."

Tracey was totally unprepared for the blonde immediately trying to crush her ribs via hug.

* * *

**And another nice, short snippet turns into a sprawling discussion, culminating in a debate over nature versus nurture before falling apart in the most awful way. Why does this always happen?**

**It's official: the romance subplot of this story is now completely out of my hands. I don't know what's going on or what will happen any more than you do, and right now the closest thing I have to a plan is to sit back and let Jen and Luna figure this mess out by themselves.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	6. Unspeakably Black

**So… I know I can get a little, um,** _**long-winded** _ **at times, but this might be a bit extreme. There were supposed to be three scenes here, and it was planned to be fairly short, but instead you get two that are much longer than I wanted them to be. My muse is going to be a little less chatty next time, I promise.**

**Oh, and you can thank Aelphais for this chapter's title. I couldn't think of anything better for it, anyway.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Pottermore claim that Eloise Mintumble's Time-Turner trip back to 1402 caused twenty-five people to be "un-born", even though the climax of book 3 is  _only_  possible if actions taken while time-traveling are already part of the original timeline? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 6  
** **Unspeakably Black**

The crowd pressed around Jen as she walked through the Atrium of the Ministry. It was rather amusing having everyone pass her without taking a second glance at her mousy brown hair and faint tan, but the awkward texture of the glamour wrapped around her stole away much of the entertainment value. When she needed to move about unseen, she greatly preferred being truly invisible or twisting her flesh into the shape desired. Physical changes had always come easily to her, even before she learned it was due to her then-distant connection to the Black family, so she had never become familiar with how uncomfortable illusions felt when she was the one inside them. This was the spell that had been stored inside the letter she had received two weeks earlier, however, and the identity of those who had sent it was reason enough for her to put up with it.

It was still a good thing that she had no intention of staying inside this glamour for very long. A moment to let the security guard register her wand – actually her many-great-aunt Elladora's – at the front desk, and then she was through the golden arch that led to the lifts headed downward. Picking one that was relatively empty, she smiled faintly when the last of the three people inside offered her an inquisitive look before he stepped out onto the eighth floor. The lift started moving yet again, going deeper to the very base of the Ministry building, and a tingle washed over her as the glamour was nullified.

" _Level nine, Department of Mysteries."_

"Right on time, Miss Black," the man waiting for her just outside the grille said. She frowned to herself upon noticing that his face was blurred out, and even her sonar only reported back a vague fuzz. This was not the first spell to interfere with her primary sense, that honor being claimed by the Notice-Me-Not charm, but total obfuscation of the senses was nonetheless rare. Threads of magic dropped down from the haze to latch on to his otherwise unremarkable belt; only now that she was paying closer attention did she realize the buckle of said belt was covered with strange glyphs along the edges. The distortion that stymied her promptly disappeared to reveal an older man with thick grey hair when he continued, "A pleasure to meet you. I'm Saul Croaker."

"The pleasure is all mine," she demurred. "It's not everyday I make the acquaintance of the head Unspeakable."

Surprisingly, the only thing her bit of flattery earned her was a jovial laugh from the wizard. "I don't know why people always make that assumption. Come, come," he invited, waving her to follow him while he walked down the short jet-black hallway where a single door awaited them. "I'm just one of the few members whose identity the general public knows; we make up the face of the Department, you could say. In reality, I'm simply the liaison between us and the Ministry at large."

The fact that there would need to be a liaison between the Ministry and one of its own offices struck her as exceedingly odd, and her curiosity must have been visible because Croaker helpfully explained, "Have you ever wondered why we are called  _'Unspeakable_ '? It's because so much of what we do is classified, though perhaps not for the reasons you'd first think. We do not talk about our work because if we did, it is inevitable that information we cannot have leaking out to the general public would find its way to them."

"But why is it classified in the first place?" Her smile gained the faintest hint of an edge. "I assumed it was because of the rumors you study evil dark magics, but…"

Croaker turned to look at her, his hand on the doorknob. "While magic does exist on a spectrum," he answered bluntly, "and, for the sake of convenience, we do refer to it as light and dark, magic has nothing to do with morality. Despite the assumptions the common wizard makes, light spells can be used to harm another person just as easily as dark spells can. Whether any particular instance of magic is good or evil is entirely the result of who uses them and for what purpose."

Withholding a smirk, she just nodded in understanding. Dark magic might not be evil by default, but there were examples that most assuredly were. That she knew from personal experience.

"No, the reason so much of what we discover is classified is so we might ensure and promote public safety."

"…Public safety."

"Indeed," he replied, ignoring her skeptical tone. "Do you know how much magic the average person knows once they leave school and spend a few years out in the world working for a living?" The man did not wait for her to answer before he continued, "They will be comfortable casting perhaps three hundred spells, and those they use on a more regular basis, daily or weekly or the like, number only around fifty. Most people will never need to defend themselves in the normal course of their lives, so why is Defense Against the Dark Arts a required class in every school in the country?"

Jen blinked, puzzled by the non sequitur. "In case the worst should happen and they can't get to safety without putting up a fight?"

"Close enough. I once heard the reasoning phrased this way: In a world where everyone receives a loaded gun at eleven, it would be a folly to be the only one on the street who can't shoot back if needed. You never know where an attack would come from." He frowned. "You do know what a gun is, yes? You have some familiarity with Muggle technology?"

"Enough to be amazed at how few wizards can pronounce 'technology'."

He smiled a touch at that. "Yes, well, it's one of the benefits of growing up in the Muggle world. The reason I ask is so I know you will understand what I'm about to say. In the course of our research, we long ago discovered that the axiom I told you is inaccurate. A wand is not a loaded gun; it is instead a vast armory, filled with clubs and arrows, explosives, chemical and biological weapons, and every possible instrument of death in between. The public is terrified of Voldemort because of how unpredictable he can be, pulling out spells most people had never considered possible before seeing them used on their family and friends." Croaker shook his head and ushered her through the doorway into a round room surrounded by yet more doors. "Oh, how they would react if we told them that even Voldemort had barely scratched the surface of what we all are really capable of. Magic, much as we love it and find it fascinating, can be incredibly dangerous, and making that fact widely known would do little but terrify the public. Far better that we keep that information from them. As patronizing as it sounds, it really is for their own good."

The charms on the floor creeped up to tie themselves securely around Jen's ankles when he closed the door they had just walked through, and she forced herself not to react when the floor began to spin and the doors arrayed around them whirled around and around in a dizzying blur. A couple of deep breaths fought down the nausea, though she worried it was a near thing. Beside her, Croaker stood unaffected, but he did not have a sixth sense that told him it was the floor that was moving while his eyes and ears insisted it was the walls. She almost envied him that, but her motion sickness faded quickly enough once they came to a halt. "If," she gasped, the last few quivers in her gut settling, "if you think you have such a good reason for making what you do so classified, why did you invite me on a tour of the place? I'd think you'd want to keep your secrets a secret, not spill them to every witch who gets curious."

"We do, but you're a bit of a special case," he said with a smirk.

"Surely a fifth-year wanting to join your ranks isn't that unusual," she scoffed. She would have to do something nice for Flitwick when she next saw him, though. He was the only person who knew of her decision to apply to the Department of Mysteries once she graduated, yet they had referenced that in their letter. He must have sent someone a note about her; it was the only explanation that made sense for how they could possibly know that.

"You'd be surprised, but no. We actually had our eyes on you even before we found that out."

Now that was interesting. Why would the Unspeakables think she was different? There was really only one thing jumping out at her. "Because I won the Triwizard Tournament? It was difficult, yes, but surely not that impressive."

"That played a small role, I suppose," Croaker agreed, "but what really got our attention was watching you break in so you could listen to a certain prophecy."

Jen took a wary step back, her attention now fully on the bland brown eyes that held a far-too-knowing glimmer in them. She had broken into the Department of Mysteries once, true, but that had been a full year previously. If they really knew about what she had done, surely she would have done something about it before now. And their claim that they had watched her do so was ludicrous! There had not been a single person in sight while she was there. "I don't know what you're talking—"

"I already told you that magic can be dangerous, and in the course of our work, we sometimes push farther than we can really cope with at the time. We have had some awful accidents happen in the middle of our experiments, so about a century ago we installed a number of devices in the walls and ceilings so that, in case something horrible did happen, we would be able to see what went wrong and come up with ways to avoid the same thing happening again in the future. They are always on and recording, just in case somebody stumbles upon a stroke of inspiration in the middle of the night and can't wait till the morning to see if it works."

He grinned, the expression of honest amusement driving Jen back another step. Within the Ministry, much like most of the world, her sonar extended a paltry four meters from her body; it was entirely possible that she could have walked past these security measures and been totally unaware of their presence. Power welled up in her hands as another thought sprang to mind; if they had recorded her while she was there, then that meant they also—

"I have to say, we were beyond shocked at what we saw. Perfect invisibility, pure wandless magic, unaided flight?" Her eyes narrowed at that blithe recount of just a few of the abilities she did her best to keep hidden, not that he seemed to care. "Many of us were practically drooling at the prospect of enticing you to return, and then the interest you showed in the library? If we hadn't found out you planned to apply for a position with us, we had several strategies with which to… encourage your cooperation."

That wasn't ominous or anything. "I'm surprised you would do that," she said instead. "One might think you would  _not_  invite someone you're accusing of intruding to come poke around even more."

Croaker smiled. "Should you decide to join us, you would not be the first person we recruited because you did something that brought you to our attention. Most of our current security measures were actually developed by the very people who used their absence to sneak around where they weren't wanted. That you could move around so easily…" He shrugged. "I, our security team, and the director all agree that you have much you can teach us."

"I see." She glanced around in the vain hope of perhaps spotting the cameras. "And if, hypothetically, I decided I didn't want to work as an Unspeakable, after all?"

"We still have the recordings of your first trip here, and, well, trespassing onto government property is a felony. Combined with poking your nose into classified material, it would not be totally beyond the realm of possibility for you to be declared a threat to national security, which imposes an even greater punishment than you would ordinarily be sentenced to. It's the reason Augustus Rookwood, a former employee of ours, was given a life sentence in Azkaban despite never taking part of any of the Death Eaters' activities beyond offering information. I doubt that's how you envisioned your future playing out, am I right?"

Sparks swirled and static crackled up and down her arms, a few bolts of electric fury striking the floor, though right now Jen really did not care. They already knew. So many of her secrets, known to potentially every member of the department. To make things worse, none of her normal strategies for handling threats like this would work here. There was actual footage of her actions, too many people had seen said footage for her to rewrite everyone's memory, and any attempts at hiding the evidence of her hiding the evidence would likewise be recorded and could tip someone off about just what she was doing. Nor could she just kill everyone here and destroy the entire department, much as she liked that particular option more and more as this conversation went on; should she be seen, the chances of people escaping and revealing her actions shot up to a near certainty. They had her over a barrel, she knew they did, and they knew she knew.

Back before Sirius found her at Candyland, she had overheard idle speculation from some of their clients that MI5 and MI6 had started recruiting people who hacked into their databases to work for them as an alternative to going to jail. Now she understood what that felt like.

"But I doubt it will be a problem," Croaker said. Walking over to one door, he pulled it open and waved for her to join him. "Come. I did promise you a tour, didn't I?"

"Going to show me the desk I'll be chained to once I graduate?" she snarked bitterly.

The wizard sighed. "Miss Black, just because your mistakes are coming back to haunt you does not mean that you won't enjoy a career here. After all, you already indicated your interest, and if I had not said anything to you about the recordings, you would be perfectly happy with what we offered you in the letter." She knew she did not look convinced, so he continued, "Don't think of this as a punishment or something you are being forced to do. Instead, what was once an interview has now been upgraded to your preemployment orientation. Few sixth-year Hogwarts students can boast that they already have their dream job set up and waiting for them once they leave school."

Jen wandered over to the tank of greenish water sitting in the middle of the room and stared for a moment at what was contained inside. She had seen brains before, both inside the skull and outside, and she therefore knew they did not have long black tentacles dangling from the brainstems. She was also fairly sure they did not writhe and pulse like jellyfish to move through the environment. Deciding the conversation was more sane than watching disembodied brains swim about, she countered, "Fewer students get told they can either work for the job that's set up for them or spend the rest of their lives in Azkaban. You can understand why that might dim my enthusiasm."

"It doesn't have to." The wizard walked up to join her. "My father was an Unspeakable, you see. He received the same offer you have, in his case because he was controlling small insect statues remotely and using them to read the books in the library without anyone knowing, or at least no one that he was aware of. The Unspeakables at the time spent three months tracking him down." Croaker smiled. "After sixty years here, he was given the opportunity to retire, all his mistakes forgiven. Do you know what he did? He stayed on for another twenty-three years because he just enjoyed the job so much.  _'Every day's an adventure over there, Saul'_ , he told me when I was deciding what I wanted to do for a living,  _'and better yet, at the end of every day you have the guarantee that the adventure will leave you with some new wisdom, even if it wasn't what you were looking for'_. I'm not saying you can't be upset at the circumstances, but perhaps you should hear just what is being offered before you start seriously considering whether prison would be worse."

"Okay, fine." She turned to look at him, challenge obvious in her eyes. "Since you clearly want to make a sales pitch so badly, do it. Why, even if I wasn't being forced into it, should I want to work as a Ministry grunt?"

"Because you already wanted to do so sight unseen, and if you're the type of person I think you are, you'll enjoy the opportunities available to you." One of the doors to the side opened, and a trio of people walked out. If they were surprised at the sight of a stranger standing in the middle of their workspace – something Jen could not tell from their faces because they were covered by the same fuzz that had previously hidden Croaker's identity – they made no mention of it and instead passed her to jot some notes in the journals laid out on a nearby desk. "There are nine broad fields we are studying currently," Croaker told her, pulling her attention away from the new Unspeakables. "In this room, we research the mind and memories. How memories are formed and stored, what happens when we forget things, whether memories can be transferred from person to person directly or if they can only be described and relayed secondhand via words and pictures. In the process, we have also made major strides in understanding the details of how language forms, how our senses are integrated together, and even where the concept of 'self' comes from. All very interesting, though not my own area of expertise."

Despite her irritation, Jen had to give him credit. His sales pitch was working. Rather than admit that yes, that did sound very interesting, she instead asked, "And what is your area of expertise, then?"

"I'm an alchemist by training, so I work in our potions lab. Most independent brewers focus on potions that are of immediate utility, even those given to research rather than retail, so what we work on is generally more… esoteric." Croaker shrugged at her incredulous expression. "My knowledge comes in handy when identifying just how different reagents should interact with each other, and I also led the team researching potion effects on inanimate or magical objects before I transitioned to my current position."

"I thought alchemy required completing a Mastery program."

"It does, but that is one of the beauties of working here. When you have access to devices that let you travel back in time, holding a full-time job and undertaking an post-graduate apprenticeship at the same time is more than possible," he said with a rakish grin.

"And just what Masteries would you tell me I am allowed to pursue?"

He rolled his eyes at her belligerence. "Whatever you like, though which Mastery you pick would likely have an influence on what projects you would work on later. There's no point in sending a Herbology Mistress into the Space Room to study the mechanics of Apparation or the Unplottable Charm or what the geography of Jupiter looks like when she would be happier and more useful working on crossbreeding magical plants or even trying to produce a viable plant-animal hybrid. Yes, we have tried that, and yes, we have even had some limited successes," the wizard said in answer to her astonishment. A knowing look crossed his face. "When I first started, we even had a Master of the Dark Arts working in our Scripture Division who had made it his life goal to discern the underlying theory behind ritual magics, but we haven't had anyone with his skill set since his retirement. Maybe, if you did well on the Dark Arts Competency you took a few weeks ago"— _of course_  they would know about that—"you could fill that gap in our ranks, though it would be entirely your choice."

"You seem abnormally interested in giving me choices and keeping me happy for telling me not five minutes ago that I didn't have a choice in whether I work for you or not," she pointed out.

"Because we have found that people are more cooperative with others and more engaged in what they're doing if they're happy. I wasn't joking when I said people have died during their experiments, and the last thing we need is you thinking about how much you hate your work instead of paying attention to what you are doing and getting yourself and everybody around you killed.

"If we walk this way," he told her as he directed her to the door the other Unspeakables had walked through, "you can see the portal system we have installed. The different rooms in the department are not physically connected to each other; we felt doing so would cause too much disturbance if somebody decided they needed to consult a colleague who was studying a different subject and had to traipse through several rooms to get to him, and trying to walk back and forth through the central room and reorienting yourself every time it spins around got old very, very quickly. Instead, the doorways are set to open up to whatever room you ask for. If you do not state your specific destination, it will lead you to a random location. I believe you figured that part out for yourself," Croaker added with a smile. "Library."

Pulling the door open revealed the same array of stacks and shelves she had found on her last visit here, though now there were far more people around. "This is the room we spend the majority of our time in," he admitted, "especially when we first start out. There is little point in jumping into an experiment if it has already been performed. Those early years are also the best time to go for a Mastery should you choose to do so. Personally, I found that it was nice to get my mind off potions and transfiguration and read something else for a little while. In the back, you'll find offices, including mine and the director's, as well as dorms to rest in if you have to wait on an experiment in the middle of the night and don't want to head home just to return in a few hours.

"The library cannot be accessed from the Rotunda, the central entrance room. The door you see at the front instead leads to a small foyer that in turn opens up to our isolation room." Jen raised one eyebrow in curiosity. "Accidents happen, but when you have a reason to suspect that your experiment might go wrong before you start, it is clearly not something you should run in our normal laboratories. Instead, it should be done in the isolation room, where we have much more stringent containment protocols and security measures."

Walking over to the indicated door, Jen stopped when she felt the sheer power of the spells radiating from the dark wood. She glanced over her shoulder to find Croaker watching her with undisguised curiosity. They already knew she had extraordinary abilities, and of all her secrets, her magical sensitivity was the one she cared about least. If she was going to work with these people, there was little point in keeping that up her sleeve, even if she had no plans ever to reveal the true depths of her ability. "It's locked up tight, isn't it? Unraveling the spell on it would take a while, but I can still tell nothing normal would be able to get through."

The Unspeakable smiled at her. "That's right. Special keys are needed to get through the two sets of doors between the isolation room and either the library or the Rotunda, and those keys are held solely by the director. It serves as a good reminder that if you want to work on something that dangerous, you should probably get it approved before you actually start the experiment. One cannot simply break into the room, either; the room is actually isolated physically as well as magically. Once the doors are closed, the only hope anything we lock up inside has for freedom is to claw through a kilometer of solid rock and then cross three more of sea. No one else was using Bardsey Island," he said with a laugh, "so why shouldn't we? It's not like anybody would be in immediate danger even if something did break through to the surface."

From there, Croaker continued her private tour. The Time Room, where she saw the Time-Turners the man had mentioned earlier, as well as some of their other experiments. The Space Room with the replica solar system she had flown among the year before. The Prophecy Room, though they did not linger long; this, he told her, was his least favorite of the subjects the Unspeakables studied because of how boring he found listening to old prophecies and trying to figure out what they meant and if they had already come to pass. The Soul Room, which they promptly left so they would not disturb the crowd of wizards huddled around a ghostly shadow that floated above a comatose figure. The Scripture Room with the chalkboards she had already seen, where the Masters of arithmancy and runes did most of their work because they could write out their equations or scripts for the rest of the group to examine.

"Only one more place to show you, and it really is the most mysterious of our mysteries," he said with a sneaky smile. "Veil Room."

The room that was revealed was dark and empty, stone steps leading down the gentle slope to a dais in the middle of the space. Jen slowly walked down to it, eyes glued to a pointed archway floating in the air and the thin, gauzy curtain that hung from it to brush against the floor. A shiver raced down her spine when she got close enough to feel the chill of the energy emanating from the curtain, which to her sonar was not cloth so much as solidified magic of the darkest kind. That was not the eeriest thing about it, though. "Is it supposed to be whispering?"

"Indeed, though the whispers are interesting. We've found that everybody who can hear the voices can also see thestrals." She glanced up in surprise, and he continued, "It is the reason some people have taken to calling this the Veil of Death, after the more metaphorical veil people are said to pass through after dying."

She looked at the curtain with new respect. If this really was a physical passage from life to the Labyrinth, it was truly a terrifying thing. Then again, she would also expect anything that led to Death's realm to be rife with the awe-inspiring power that her sonar could not detect, yet she felt no holes in the world around the artefact. "Wherever did you find it?"

"There is a small island off the northern coast of Norway that the local wizards named Mímir, after a figure from Norse mythology. Four hundred years ago, some Unspeakables traveled there, and the inhabitants showed them where this was and told them it was called the Well. No one knew who made it or what it did, but the people were afraid of it enough to let the Department bring it back to Britain."

"Has anyone gotten a Muggle to toss an eyeball in and see if it turns him into a wizard?" she could not help but ask.

"Of course they did. It didn't work. From the sound of the experiment, however, that Muggle was not exactly willing, so that might have had something to do with the failure." He shrugged. "Or maybe not. Centuries later, we still don't know exactly what it does or how it does it. Inanimate objects go through as though the Veil weren't there unless they are attached to something living, and living things never make it out. We've put monitoring charms on the animals we sent through to see what happened to them, but they fail as soon as the creatures vanish. Spells just slip through like inanimate objects. It is incredibly frustrating to have a one-of-a-kind artefact like this in our hands and not know what to do with it," Croaker muttered, "yet at the same time it is equally interesting. This is the kind of thing that motivates us: shining light on the unknown, teasing out hints about the nature of magic. There is still so much about the world we don't know, and that is not something we will abide.

"So," he asked, holding out his hand as though in invitation, "what do you think? Do you think unraveling mysteries will appeal to you? Can you see yourself as one of us, an Unspeakable?"

Jen took a deep breath and let it out. She was still furious about the underlying situation, and especially her own negligence in allowing it to come about, but she did her best to keep that anger out of her voice. "It's better than prison, I suppose. And no one outside this department knows about what I did?"

"It's just us. Rufus Scrimgeour, and Amelia Bones before him, do not have a high opinion of making deals with those who break the law. Briefing them would have run counter to our plan."

"Well, then," she said with a sigh as she grasped his hand with her own, "I guess all I can say is, I look forward to working with you."

* * *

A pair of letters plopped down in front of her, and Jen glanced up at the wizard who was grinning far too widely at her. "Yes?"

"Take a look at the seal on the back."

Flipping the first letter over, the corners of Jen's mouth spread wide as she took in the design of the seal. It was similar to the general Ministry's seal, a large 'M' with a few sparks spread around, but here the wand in the middle of the 'M' had been replaced by a quill. There was only one thing the Department of Magical Education would be writing her about. "My OWL results, you think?"

"Wha' elfe coul' i' be?" Dora demanded, a slice of toast sticking partway out of her mouth. Swallowing the lump of food, she ordered, "Well, don't keep us in suspense. Open it!"

She happily obliged. " _'Salutations, Miss Black. We wish to congratulate on your recent scores on the Ordinary Wizarding Level exams'_  … blah, blah, blah …  _'All the best on your future academic endeavors.'_  Nice little form letter they've got." A roll of her eyes at her cousin's impatient hand-waving, and she pulled out the second sheet of parchment contained inside the envelope.

ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS  
 _Pass Grades  
_ Outstanding (O)  
Exceeds Expectations (E)  
Acceptable (A)  
 _Fail Grades_  
Poor (P)  
Dreadful (D)  
Troll (T)

"It may come as a shock to you," Andi said in a droll voice, "but we do know all this already. Get to the point before Cissy grows any more white hairs."

"You know damn well I've had these since I was born. And you don't get to crack any age jokes at my expense, anyway,  _big sis_. You're five years older than me!"

 _Jennifer Bellatrix Black has achieved:_  
Ancient Runes  **O  
** Arithmancy  **O  
** Astronomy  **A  
** Charms  **O  
** Defense Against the Dark Arts  **E  
** Herbology  **A  
** History  **P  
** Potions  **O  
** Transfiguration  **E**

A displeased sigh passed her lips. "I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised at the History mark," she eventually said. "Umbridge did say that only something like thirty-five percent of students pass it, after all, and it's entirely possible that I just barely failed."

"Be that as it may," Cissy said, slipping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close, "the rest of your scores are exceptional. Top marks in both Runes and Arithmancy, the two hardest classes Hogwarts offers? And an Outstanding in Potions, which you need if you want to join the NEWT sessions. Why, except for Herbology, you can continue on in all of the subjects you were previously taking that actually offer courses in the sixth and seventh years, and Herbology is a field with extremely limited utility. Practically every opportunity you could want is available to you!"

"Very true," added Sirius. "You know, you never have told us what you wanted to do with your life. Well, what you want to do besides dealing with the Wizengamot and House issues, for which I still think you're crazy."

"A little hypocritical of you, considering that's what you do all day, don't you think?" Ted asked in a bland voice.

"I do it because it needs to be done. She wants to do it. Big difference there."

"Well…" Now was as good a chance as ever, she supposed. "You remember how I went to the Ministry a few days ago? I told you it was essentially an interview." The rest of her family leaned closer in anticipation. "It went well, so I definitely have a job waiting for me once I graduate."

Dora shook her head. "You still haven't said who it's with. All I know is that it isn't with the DMLE because my dearest, most darling-est cousin would never come to the office and not swing by my desk to say hello and go out for lunch." The enormous puppy dog eyes, blue irises growing to cover her entire visible sclerae, went well with the whining voice.

"No, it wasn't with the DMLE. I was actually meeting with the Unspeakables."

The rest of the House gave her a round of congratulations at that, and she smiled at their warm acceptance before pulling out the second letter. "It's from the ICW," she told them in surprise.

Anxious silence filled the room, the only sound her cutting through the envelope. " _'Miss Black: We at the International Confederation of Wizards, Education Division, Office for Unaffiliated and Self-Study Students, are pleased to release the scores for the International Competency Exams you have recently taken. Please note that 3/5 is considered a passing score, and 4/5 is necessary to qualify for the Proficiency Exam in that subject.'"_

"Not too different from the OWLs, then," Ted pointed out.

She nodded, her grin growing wider as she looked at the score before her. " _'You have been awarded:_ _Offensive Magic and the Dark Arts, 5/5._ "

The other Blacks appeared unsure whether to congratulate her or not for acing an exam on magics that were illegal in Britain. The other Blacks bar Cissy, that was, who merely gave her shoulders another squeeze and smiled brightly. "That is fantastic, Jen."

"Thanks, Auntie. The rest is more form letter, but…"

Pulling out the other slip of parchment, she scanned it before handing it over to her favorite family member to read. Contained within had been the requirements for taking the Dark Arts Proficiency, which she would need to pass if she wanted to be licensed to use dark magic on the Continent, and while most of the list was expected – various spell categories and theory portions, for which a list of recommended textbooks had been helpfully included – what really caught her attention was the unusual requirement for the practical exam.

"' _All students who wish to receive a dark magic license must also demonstrate proficiency in and control of two branches of the Dark Arts and be evaluated by a wizard or witch currently licensed in those branches. A list of examples has been provided, though any field may be tested on so long as prior approval has been granted by the ICW Education Division,_ '" Andi read after claiming the note from her sister. " _'The deadline for submitting your selection is 1 June of the year before you intend to sit the exam. Earlier notification is, of course, greatly appreciated.'_  And there's a very long list following it."

"So," Sirius asked in a voice of forced cheer, "what illegal spells are you going to spend the next two years learning how to cast?"

Summoning the list back to her, Jen scanned over her options. "My first one is obvious. Blood magic." Sirius and Dora frowned, but after a moment their Head of House nodded in understanding. Blood magic was something they had numerous books on in the library, and she had already read through several of the introductory texts on the subject. It was admittedly not something she was well-practiced in, mostly because it was incredibly complicated and every bit of blood magic one used whittled away at the caster's life-force, something she had not known until the previous summer, but that field would be the easiest for her to master.

And, thankfully, the cost to her vitality was exceedingly minor for the majority of the spells she would be working with, so she would not have to worry about shortening her lifespan by any significant degree while she was practicing.

"As for the other…" Memories of a conversation she had once had about a man who had mastered calling forth creatures from other realms flashed through her mind's eye before she shook them away. "I'm not sure at the moment. I guess it's a good thing I have a while to make up my mind."

Sirius clapped his hands. "Well, that's all well and good, but more importantly, you need to write a letter to Flitwick. It's not required but still customary to notify the head of your Hogwarts house about what NEWT classes you'll be taking. And I guess you won't be doing like I did and taking only the fun stuff, either," he said with an expression of joking distaste. "Arithmancy and Runes, yuck."

"Runes are fun," she and Andi said together.

"See what I mean, Ted? She's completely crazy. What normal person would—" A conjured and banished pillow slammed into his face, the force tipping his chair over and dumping him onto the kitchen floor. Ted, being far smarter than Sirius, took one look at his wife's raised wand before he lifted his hands in the air and kept his mouth shut.

* * *

**I had a great laugh last book when several people said that anything Jen attempted seemed destined to go through without a hitch. This thing, with an entire department of the Ministry learning some of Jen's biggest secrets? This had already been in my notes for** _**months** _ **at that point.**

**As you should probably be able to guess from the changed purpose of the "Ever-Locked Room", I'm not a fan of Rowling's position that love is some great and dangerous force that needs to be locked away for it to be studied safely. I don't even know where she was going with that, to be totally honest, unless it was to set up the fact that Dumbledore's "make love, not war" attitude is what set up the entire series and especially the complete clusterfuck that was book 7. Instead, I decided to take that room and make it a little more practical.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	7. The War Eternal

**In case you didn't know, ProfessorScrooge has written a one-shot based on this series. It's not how I'm going to handle that specific subplot, but I could see it working with a somewhat different Jen and Luna. Anyway, go check it out, especially if you're a fan of the short story "The Lady, or the Tiger?".**

**Disclaimer:**  Despite Voldemort trying to kill a toddler, and then repeating the attempt on an 11-, 14-, and 15-year-old, did Ron and Hermione really think Voldemort was concerned enough about age that he would not give Malfoy a job to do just because he was too young? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 7  
** **The War Eternal**

A bleary blink of her eyes preceded Jen awakening fully, and she swept the tangled curtain of hair out of her face and pulled herself out of bed before her sonar brought what was going on downstairs to her attention. "Is that…?" she wondered aloud before a wicked giggle slipped through her lips. She should not take quite so much enjoyment out of observing the pair downstairs drown in their task, she knew, but that did not stop her from being a little more thorough and deliberate as she went about her daily routine. All told, she probably spent an extra ten minutes procrastinating and feeling the members of her family grow more and more frazzled.

"Good morning," she chirped when she finally set foot in the kitchen. "I didn't realize we were starting an owl-order business. What are we selling?"

Hidden away behind the piles of mail covering most of the table, Sirius grumbled, "You, though I'm starting to think I might just give you away, instead. Be less work for me than— Hey!"

Cissy pulled her hand back from where she had playfully slapped him on the head and just rolled her eyes at Jen. "Happy birthday, dear. A little help, please?"

"I suppose, if you're getting that overwhelmed." Kreacher snapped his fingers and delivered another stack of letters onto the table while she sat down. A twirl of her hand ripped the envelope open. " _'Miss Black, We of the Most Noble House of Kennewick would like to wish you a very happy birthday. As you are now sixteen … Most important duty to one's House …'_  Ah, here we go.  _'… Our nephew, Clive Kennewick, has recently been promoted to Junior Undersecretary for the Department of International Magical Cooperation …_ '" Jen tilted her head. "In comparison to the rest of the suitors you've heard about so far, how does a twenty-eight-year-old guy sound?"

"Better than some, worse than others," her godfather sighed. "What is his family's initial offer?"

With a shrug of her shoulders, she skimmed through the rest of the letter. "Thirty percent ownership of ten vineyards in France, as well as a seven percent interest in a couple of farms and ranches in Ireland."

"Eh…" He visibly mulled that offer over before waving to one of the four piles in front of him. "Put it here. The Kennewicks don't have a whole lot to offer, so we'll probably say no eventually, but we might be able to squeeze a few nice trinkets out of them before they drop their interest."

"Anyone mind cluing me in to the system we're using?"

Cissy tapped the stack closest to her, coincidentally the second-shortest of them. "This is for options we will definitely be entertaining because they are respectable suitors or their Houses are close allies of ours and so we at least have to look like we're giving them serious consideration or they are offering something of great value." The older witch made a face of great distaste. "It's the only reason Lady McElroy's offer of her great-grandson is here and not in the  _'polite refusal'_  pile. The boy's an uncouth brute.

"That stack is, obviously, for offers we will eventually refuse but might be able to get a few gifts out of first. They know how this game is played, so it probably won't be much, but any value we can add to your dowry is worth it. And it's fully possible that you might genuinely like one of them, so we don't want to turn them down immediately."

"On the other hand," Sirius chimed in, "these two stacks are for those we are turning down." He tapped the shortest one, which held only a few sheets of parchment. "It's extraordinarily rude to simply ignore a betrothal offer, but some of them are extraordinarily rude letters to begin with. Sometimes it's a matter of not thinking before they put quill to parchment, sometimes it's because they saw this as an opportunity to kick up a fuss, but either way, the best way to reply to these people is just not to reply at all."

Waving to the tallest pile, he continued, "Over here, though, are all the offers we are going to politely decline. There's a form letter for that, so it won't take much effort. It's just going to be time-consuming."

"Potential allies we don't want to alienate but also aren't that important?" she guessed.

"Not as many as you might think; most of those are in the  _'maybe'_  pile. No, some, like several we received from Death Eater Houses, there is just no way we are going to trust and I would like to send an ugly letter back to. But since you have to go to school with a few of their kids," he said with an unhappy shrug, "we'll go ahead and uphold our societal obligations. If a bit of common courtesy makes you safer, it's worth it."

She gave him a small, thankful smile. She could handle Death Eater spawn coming after her, but it was nice not to have to worry about dealing with that problem.

"Others are clearly sent due to societal obligations of their own. Most of the younger, single Lords sent you offers – Bradley, Callahan, Ainsley, that bunch – but none of them are serious. It's just expected for them to try to find a wife so they can continue their line. Though Bradley's offer was generous enough I'm tempted to put him in the potentials' pile."

"Everyone knows he has sired a number of bastard children," Cissy cut in. "A few of them have even been with daughters of wealthy Common Houses, and he will almost certainly settle down with one of them eventually. If Jen married him, she would immediately become a laughingstock. That family is  _nouveau riche_ , anyway," she concluded with a disdainful sniff, "not old enough to warrant serious consideration for the hand of the heiress of one of the three Ancient and Most Noble Houses."

The smirk on Sirius's face was smug, and he picked up a single envelope that was set aside from the rest. "New money, huh? I guess we better toss this one out, then, shouldn't we?"

Jen's eyes narrowed, and she summoned the letter out of Sirius's hand to her own. What was he picking on her for this time? Ripping the betrothal offer open, she only had to glance at the signature at the bottom before she forcibly set it on top of the stack that held the best offers. Sirius just laughed at her resolute expression.

"Ah, it must be  _that_  request," Cissy murmured, her own face lighting up in humor as she figured out the identity of the sender. Plucking the letter up again, she smiled and nodded. "Hmm. Sirius, do you know anyone named Anton Krum?"

"The name does sound vaguely familiar, but I can't place it," replied the family dog, grinning broadly as Jen huffed and crossed her arms. "He doesn't sound British, though. What's he offering for her?"

"Not much, surprisingly. He does, however, spend a short paragraph talking about how much his son enjoyed the time he spent with her and how he could make her happy. Why, it's almost like he isn't nobility at all!"

"Not nobility  _and_  not British? Why are we including his son in the group of socially acceptable suitors, then?"

"I am quite sure I have no idea."

"You do know that I am not some prize filly to be sold to the highest bidder, yes?" Jen asked in a biting voice, though much of its sting was lost in the face of her godfather and aunt's smiles. "And in case you've forgotten, Sirius, I'd like to remind you that I am next in line to control this House. It would be just terrible if something  _unfortunate_  happened to you and made me acting Head, don't you think?"

Sirius could not hold in his mirth any longer and barked out a long laugh. "Oh, Jen, we're just taking the mickey. If you really don't like these guys after going out on a couple of dates with them, they'll be out of consideration, and if you decide you like one of them much more than the others, we'll make the contract with his family regardless of whether they are the richest or most connected or whatever." He reached out to take hold of her hand. "You know your happiness is more important than how much money we can get from a marriage arrangement."

While that would normally be a comforting thought – should her independence be put at odds with members of her family, she knew which she would most likely choose, though the decision itself and the fallout from it would be heartbreaking – her mind was currently stuck on something else he had said. "What do you mean, dates?"

"How else are you supposed to decide which suitors you like and which you don't?" Cissy asked her. "Besides, this is standard protocol in high society. By going on dates with a variety of suitors, you encourage them to continue negotiating the potential contract between our House and theirs, and in doing so you push them to continue giving you gifts to keep your interest. It also works as an incentive to those Houses that are lower on our list of candidates to give bigger and more expensive presents to try to increase their standing in our eyes."

"I understand that. It's just…"  _It's just that Luna is already in a snit about this_ , she complained silently,  _and that was when it was just something going on in the background. Living with her and at the same time going on dates with random guys will be a tremendous pain_.

Sirius shrugged, and for a moment she had hope that he was about to give her an out. "We know your marks in class are important, too," he told her instead, "especially if you want to keep that place with the Unspeakables. They'll understand if those dates have to be arranged on weekends and holidays."

Jen gave him a tight smile. They were completely missing what her concern was, but…

She sighed. This was what she had asked for. If the House of Black's prestige and power – and therefore her prestige and power – were to continue to rise, they needed to find new allies, new sources of profit and support. The shortest and easiest method to do so was to marry into it, and more than that, to play and win the game that lead to that union. It was, much like Tracey had said, a matter of doing what was best for the House as well as for herself personally, and if that required a sacrifice on her part now in exchange for greater rewards in the future, that sacrifice was one she had to make.

Luna would just have to learn to understand that line of reasoning if their relationship was to have a chance to survive.

* * *

Diagon Alley had changed a great deal since Jen had seen it a year previously. Where once it was full of excitement and light, people out to gossip and visit as much as they were there to shop, now a malignant fog of fear and distrust lingered over the marketplace. Shoppers scurried around in cloaks, many with their hoods pulled up to hide their faces, and did not leave the safety of their established groups. No one walked around alone, but neither did they seek out the company of those they did not already know were safe.

Sirius shivered, the atmosphere of despair lending the streets a chill that would ordinarily be banished by the bright sun overhead. "What do you think? Split up and do all our shopping in half the time?"

"Probably not a bad idea," Andi agreed. Cissy nodded from next to her. "Ted, Cissy, and I go to Flourish and Blotts and Scribbulus for her textbooks and her new rune tools while you two go to Madam Malkin's and the apothecary?"

"Putting the Head and heir together where we make a bigger target?" Sirius asked with a raised eyebrow.

At that question, Ted gave him a wry smile. "You're a big enough target all on your own. Dora couldn't come, so out of all of us, Jen is the one who can defend you the best."

"And I can defend myself just fine," she added when it looked like he would interrupt.

The mild indignation on Sirius's face died off at her statement. "The sad part is that I really can't argue with that. You have the list?"

Jen passed the sheet of parchment that had come with her most recent Hogwarts letter to Andi. The books she would need for her classes were all rather obvious:  _Advanced Potion-Making_ ;  _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6_ ;  _Advanced Rune Translation_ ;  _Numerologic Transformations_  and  _Foundational Spell-Crafting_ ; and even  _Advanced Transfiguration_  since she had decided to continue on with her study of transfiguration. She might not need a NEWT score in that subject because she was also moving on in Charms, but as Flitwick had told her, a good mark there could only help her in the future. Stranger than the textbooks were the tools the letter had indicated she would need for Ancient Runes. What exactly a size 3-5 dual-wedge stylus, goat-hair brushes, and a #2 inkstone were, she had no idea, but she knew what their necessity meant for her. They would finally,  _finally_ be studying serious runecraft.

The textbooks she needed for the Dark Arts exam she would take in two years she could not get locally, but Loki was currently en route to deliver her order form to the international supplier the ICW had recommended.

The group broke apart to head in different directions. As they walked, Jen could not help but notice how many people flicked glances their way. They did stand out, she supposed; unlike many others, they did not move quickly and furtively, their heads down and their eyes wide and wary as if they expected to be attacked at any moment. No, she and Sirius walked with their heads up and their eyes forward, looking for all the world like a father and daughter out for a peaceful stroll. The wizard's tight grip on the wand in his pocket belied that, but that was not something any ordinary person would notice.

They had barely made it halfway to Madam Malkin's when she felt it. There, on the very periphery of her sonar, someone walked by her. She was not paying attention to such details as body shape or clothing, much to her later displeasure. No, what caught her attention in that brief instant was that person's core.

The magical cores of most witches and wizards felt like balls of lightning, the energy held tight unless they were casting a spell. Her family, bar Ted who was only a member by marriage, had cores that were colder than the norm, an inherent darkness pervading their magic despite Sirius, Andi, and Dora's personal beliefs. Luna's core, on the other hand, held a warmth that on one memorable occasion had been legitimately painful to be around. And then there were Elsie's and Voldemort's cores, both of which were encased in ice, something she could only assume was due to them being black mages.

But this individual? His or her core was a ball of fire.

She spun on her heel and backed up, her eyes flicking over the crowd in the desperate hope of identifying this newcomer, this white mage. Everywhere she looked, though, all she saw were cloaks and hoods; already, the clumps of people had shifted around, leaving her with no hint of who had just walked past her.

"Jen?" Sirius asked softly from directly behind her, his side practically touching her back. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," she lied. "Just thought I saw something."

"The way everyone's acting, it's no surprise you're a little jumpy," he told her in conciliatory voice. "All the more reason for us to get your robes and ingredients and head back home."

The smile she gave him was decidedly weak. While they continued to their destination, her mind was elsewhere, specifically on the white mage. As a general rule, the only times white mages and black mages met were when they were trying to kill each other; it came part and parcel with being the foot soldiers in a war that had been ongoing since before the dawn of humanity. Even if avatars of the two sides of the pantheon did run into each other without violence immediately breaking out, the likelihood of them having a civil discussion was almost nonexistent. The Dark and Light Powers had different methodologies, and that was reflected in their choice of servants. She had never encountered one personally, but she could only imagine how they would act if they had all the self-righteousness and irritation of Dumbledore's followers but enough lethality that she could not just turn her back on them and walk away.

Jen shuddered at the thought. That was true horror, right there.

Regardless of her amusing imaginings, this was not a good sign. The chances of her just happening upon a white mage were small, and that worried her. Sure, this could be a new tool of the Light Powers, but there were few enough of them scattered across the world that the idea that a pair of black and white mages could both be contracted in the same country and less than ten years apart nearly beggared belief. If this was not a local white mage, however, why had he or she come to Britain in the first place?

She swallowed, but the action did nothing to dislodge the lump in her throat. Elsie's flight from Haiti was the best explanation for why white mages might enter another country. They would be hunting black mages, and as far as she knew, there were only two black mages in Britain: Voldemort and herself.

 _There's no need to worry_ , she told herself as she and Sirius entered Malkin's shop.  _I don't have any definitive information yet one way or another. For all I know, this white mage is just here on a supply run before he or she moves on to their next target, however unlikely that is. I can't just assume that they are after me. But if they are_ , she added, her eyes turning hard,  _I will make them regret it_.

* * *

It did not surprise her to wake that night engulfed in a cloud of cigar smoke.

Jen bowed her head and was about to kneel when she noticed the cushion waiting on the ground just a couple of paces before her. Between that and the fact she had appeared already dressed in a silky black dress, a stark contrast from the lascivious garments she had been permitted during her previous meetings, she had a feeling this was not going to be a pleasant audience. Seating herself on the pillow, the mist immediately cleared enough for her to see the unnaturally tall and emaciated figure lurking in wait. A too-wide scowl adorned his grey head, the only patch of skin not as black as his magic, and in light of that she averted her eyes. "Your servant awaits your commands."

"Good." The high-pitched snarl in the voice of Baron Samedi, of Death himself, was no more pleased than his expression had led her to believe he was. "You know why I called you here."

It was not a question. "The white mage I encountered today."

"Indeed." The Baron chuckled, the nasal sound nonetheless taking a sinister edge. "And do you know why he is here?"

"I suspect I do." So it was a white wizard, then. That did not do much to help her, but it did eliminate half her possible enemies. "He is here to kill me, isn't he?"

She glanced up to catch him smirking. "I do not need to tell you what I wish for you to do in response, then, do I?"

No, no he did not. She still barely caught her sigh of frustration. Already the clock was ticking as the deadline to kill Voldemort crept closer and closer, and it was going to be hard enough to kill the Dark Lord by her seventeenth birthday. Now she had another target to eliminate at the same time?

"The abomination is an irritant," the Baron told her, plucking the answer right out of her unprotected mind, "but he no longer walks these shores. He has moved on to different lands for now." Wait, Voldemort wasn't in Britain any longer?! "Your enemy, on the other hand, is a greater and more pressing threat. Concentrate your efforts on him."

"And the deadline?" she asked as gently as she could.

He watched her for a moment, or at least she thought he did. The top hat he had pulled low over his eyes made it hard to know for certain. "Another year I grant you," he finally said.

That was good. Excellent, even, though she still had to deal with this interloper. Jen nibbled on her lip; she had only spotted him today, and if he was in the Alley, it might be that he was stocking up on the essentials he would need for his stay in Britain. There were only a few places in the Wizarding World that offered short-term accommodations, and he would almost definitely go to one of them first and then work on finding a base for the longer term. If she started with the Leaky Cauldron, she could then head to the hostel on Knockturn—

"Six weeks." She looked up at him in confusion. "He has been in this country hunting you for the last six weeks."

"You knew he was here?" she asked incredulously.

"I did, yes."

The answer was delivered in a perfectly neutral voice, and that more than anything else warned her she had best tread lightly. She had learned the previous year that, contrary to what she previously believed, the Baron was… not light-hearted, necessarily, but certainly in possession of a sense of humor, and he had tolerated questions that were in hindsight perhaps a little forward. That did not mean Death was someone to trifle with or disrespect, something her mentor had discovered in the most terrifying way possible. A moment passed while she decided on her phrasing. "May this one know why you thought it best not to reveal that information before tonight?"

Several seconds were occupied solely by oppressive silence as he considered her request. "I bestowed that right upon another," the Baron eventually replied.

Her face was the picture of confusion, and he continued without pause, "The balance created by our Pact is sacrosanct. When one of us reveals information to a servant, an imbalance is created that can and will be countered by one on the other side of the divide. That is particularly true when the information pertains to a servant of an enemy. This wizard's master gave him information on you, and that gave me the right to inform you in response." He smiled, the Glasgow grin stretching literally from one ear to the other and revealing far more teeth than any human would ever have in their mouth. "Or I could give it to a comrade so that she might tell one of her own mortals." He leaned back against the empty air and tilted his head in anticipation.

She.  _She_. Jen racked her brain for which Dark Power he could be talking about. Three of the seven were described as female, and she could only assume he wanted her to figure out whom he had spoken to without his assistance. But why did she need to work out who it was?

Because that would tell her who was coming after her, she realized. It came down to the balance of information he had just told her about. The Baron knew who the white wizard was, probably knew everything about him, but he was not going to tell her because he had already given that information away. If it was revealed a second time, that would just create a further imbalance, this time one their enemies could use to their advantage. Her figuring the identities on her own, on the other hand, might not count against it because she was a mere human, so he could safely share the little hints he had been feeding her without straining the Powers' Pact. And since the Powers all had a counterpart on the other side with whom they naturally clashed, knowing who was coming to her aid would tell her who the patron of her enemy was.

So back to the question at hand. Who had joined forces with the Baron for this fight? The Leader of the Wild Hunt? Probably not. Perchta's magic also involved dealing with the dead, albeit in the form of summoning and controlling spirits rather than reincarnating corpses, so she and Death had an uneasy relationship to say the least, and he had not spoken about his current ally with distaste. The Unseelie Queen? That was a possibility, though Elsie had taught her that the two queens involved themselves only peripherally with the wider war between the Powers, preferring to waste their time on the campaign between their courts. If the Baron truly was calling on one of his colleagues because of those longstanding rivalries, it would make little sense for him to bring in the Unseelie Queen, for what could Jen have done to anger the queen of the Seelie fae? Which just left…

"Tiamat." The Baron smirked and brought his ever-present cigar to his lips for a self-congratulatory puff. She, on the other hand, grimaced as the reasoning behind that alliance followed that conclusion. Like in Babylonian myth, Tiamat's most hated foe was the storm-god Marduk.

Oh, this was going to be  _fun_. She did not know much about the white magic Marduk gifted – to be honest, she probably needed to go through her books again and refamiliarize herself with all the Light Powers' gifts – but Elsie had told her that his avatars, the Stormriders, were said to have the white magic best-suited for straight combat. Voodoo, while powerful, was ritualistic and time-consuming; wonderful for preparing traps or creating contingencies, but it left her exceedingly vulnerable if she did not have time to prepare.

The Baron nodded his head. "You are to be hospitable when our guest arrives." So Tiamat was sending one of her avatars to help. Good, good. That should make dealing with the Stormrider easier. "And I advise you to use caution."

She looked at him with curiosity. For a Dark Power to show concern for his avatar like that was rather unusual.

"This enemy is… skilled. He once tried his hand at slaying the Philosopher, and despite the vast gulf in experience, he nearly succeeded. You, however, do not have centuries of practice to rely upon." A stream of smoke obscured Death's face for an instant. "I have yet to benefit from the investment I made in you. It would not be in your best interest to leave this world before I have done so, else I will have no recourse but to entertain myself with you."

A shiver ran down Jen's spine. Of all the things she did not want to be, the Baron's 'entertainment' following her death was one of them. In an effort to distract herself from just what that meant, she latched on to the last thing he said. "The Philosopher? Centuries of practice… Nicolas Flamel is a black wizard?!" she all but demanded. She had never given much thought to how the Flamels had achieved immortality, but if that was how he had achieved it, it would make a great deal of sense. But if that were the case, why had the Baron not moved against him in the same way he had against Voldemort?

To her consternation, the Baron shook his head. "No, he never contracted with any of us, not that you are the first to make that assumption. Such a disappointment," he added quietly, "what a waste. How many mortals can claim that all thirteen Powers would have willingly accepted his service?"

"Wait, all thirteen?" she repeated in surprise. "I thought there were  _fourteen_  Powers; seven Dark and seven Light."

The Baron hummed in thought for a moment. "The existence of one of the Light is… complicated. The best way to describe the situation is that he is as dead as one of us can be. It is a tale for another time.

"As for the Philosopher, his achievement was pure mortal imagination and will." He settled himself more comfortably on his own cushion, a hand brushing imaginary lint or ash off his purple waistcoat, and she curled up as well. The Baron had only ever told her one story, that being the true history of the brothers Peverell, but she could not deny the allure of learning these long-hidden secrets. "When he was still in his youth, only a few years older than yourself, a plague swept through his land and sent millions upon millions through my realm. He was, at the time, a disgustingly charitable and soft-hearted boy, and he made it his life's goal to create a panacea in case such a disease should visit the realm again. Working off decades of research he performed upon vampires, he eventually harvested the last drops of liquid life from those who had succumbed to sickness and injury so he might distill and crystalize those sparks of vitality, and just as he hoped, he was able to dissolve pieces of his creation to heal all manner of wounds and prolong life." Baron Samedi gave her a small but knowing smile. "In his search to aid his fellow man, he discovered a flawed but effective form of immortality."

"Flawed? And what did he dissolve the Stone in to create the Elixir of Life?" she could not help but ask. It was intriguing to hear that the Philosopher's Stone was created from heartblood, a theory she had heard before but that no one had ever been able to prove, but no one had ever been able to guess the base of the Elixir.

"What else could he use?  _Aqua vitae_." Jen snickered at that perfect, ironic response, and the Baron chuckled as well. "But yes, his method was flawed. His magic could not create from nothingness or circumvent the laws of this plane of existence; he could only move and manipulate what already was. If he wished to live, others had to die, and he claimed what life-force their still-warm bodies had left for himself.

"In the beginning, he claimed to all who asked that he only planned to extend his life unnaturally until he had learned all there was to know about his creation, for he knew that not even he had uncovered the depths of its powers. His greatest goal, futile though it was, was to develop a method to create a Stone that did not require another's death to make and maintain. And yet, time passed. The Philosopher grew no closer to overcoming his greatest hurdle, and gradually he and his wife began to fear my ever-pursuing footsteps."

He laughed darkly. "That is not to say their lives were difficult. No, quite the opposite. Material wealth was no obstacle to them, and they watched as their land all but tore itself apart in war and revolution. Criminals were shot, patriots had their heads lopped off, and always were they there, waiting in the shadows. Like carrion crows, they glutted themselves on the fallen, and no matter how much they claimed to detest it, they thrived on strife."

"I can see why you want him as one of your avatars," she said with a smile.

"Yes, but that is unfortunately no longer possible." She tilted her head, so he explained, "In the end, not even the Philosopher could live forever. He was not struck down by wand or sword, however. No, what finally slew him was an attack by his own conscience. The Stone was taken out of his hands, and when he had the opportunity to reclaim it, he instead allowed it to be destroyed, and then he refused to create another in what little time he had left." The Baron snarled. "A pathetic waste of talent and skill."

Jen bowed her head. She could understand her patron Power's displeasure, and she agreed with his assessment of Flamel. All the things he could have done in the world if only he had the courage to go through with it. And then to allow himself to die? Oh, what she could do if she were the one to hold the Philosopher's Stone!

"Then perhaps you should direct your attentions to alchemy." She glanced up to see Death's sinister leer. "I can only imagine what could be accomplished should you work my magic upon another stone such as that one. But for now, that is of no importance. You have a different task with which to occupy your mind. I trust you can handle this?"

"I can," she told him after a moment to replay the earlier portion of their conversation through her head once again. His story had thoroughly distracted her. "The white wizard will die."

"Good. I have but two things to tell you, then. In six weeks, your assistance in this task will travel from the Black Forest to this country. They will be traveling in the manner of magicless mortals, and I want you to meet them. Once again, show them all due hospitality."

Germany to Britain via Muggle routes? An airport, then.

"And keep my focus with you," he continued, interrupting her train of thought. "You forged it with human sacrifice and the last scraps of your innocence. It is the best weapon you can carry, black magic solidified. Unless you take the time to create something more useful, it may be the only gift I can give you should circumstances turn dire.

"Now, it is time you return to the world of the living." The Baron grinned wickedly. "You need your sleep, after all. Try not to die."

* * *

"What?!" Argus Filch protested. "You're firing me?!"

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid so." Pomona did not think Marchbanks sounded sorry, but the elderly witch just continued, "There just isn't a proper place for you here at Hogwarts, not when so much of the work is already handled by the house-elves we keep. If you find another place to work, I will be more than willing to give you a good recommendation, but there is no point to keep you on staff in the meantime. Please take the rest of the day to pack up your things and say your goodbyes."

The heartbroken man needed several seconds to process the awful news that had just been delivered, but eventually he rose to his feet and staggered to the door. Once it had closed behind him, Pomona looked over at her superior with a disdainful expression. "That was completely unnecessary. Hogwarts is Argus's home; he doesn't have anywhere else to go. It's the whole reason Albus—"

"Yes, I'm aware that Dumbledore employed him purely out of pity," Marchbanks interrupted. "That is not good enough for me, and it should not be good enough for Hogwarts. There is no point in keeping a caretaker who is an elderly Squib and therefore would have to clean everything by hand when we have over a hundred house-elves who do his job for him. There is especially no reason to keep someone on staff who has already pleaded several times if I would allow him to…" Frowning, the witch flipped through the short stack of parchment on one corner of her desk until finally pulling one out. "Yes, if I would allow him to supervise detentions that involved hanging students from their wrists in the dungeons or caning them for such grievous offenses as talking too loudly in the hallways or tracking mud in the Great Hall." Marchbanks laid the request back on her desk and raised an eyebrow almost mockingly. "This is a school, Pomona. Tell me why I should even consider keeping someone like him around children."

The head of Hufflepuff and now Deputy Headmistress glanced away. Yes, Argus had a history of suggesting thoroughly inappropriate punishments for minor or nonexistent crimes, but that was still no reason to just chuck him out of the castle. Surely taking his job away from him was enough, wasn't it?

That was the biggest issue she had with her new boss. Yes, the news that Albus might have used mind magics on some students was shocking and abhorrent, and some of his decisions as headmaster were suspicious in retrospect, but most of the time he did have a good reason for doing what he did. Argus was not the only person whose job at Hogwarts had been about giving them a safe place to stay first and filling a spot on the payroll second; Rubeus was the same before he had been promoted to professor, and then there was Irma Pince, and Patricia Trelawney was probably in that group, as well.

Marchbanks, however, did not care about the humanitarian basis of Albus's choices. It probably came as a result of working in the Wizarding Examination Authority before she took over as interim headmistress; she was focused entirely on exam scores and pass rates, and that singleminded drive meant she did not think about how she should use the power of her position to care for those who had nowhere else to turn. Unfortunately, the school board liked what she had done so far, and so when it was time to choose someone to take the spot permanently, her name had been on the top of the list.

The fireplace flared into life, and green flame swirled and twisted into a face Pomona was becoming more familiar with as time went on. "Headmistress," Amelia Bones called out, "are you busy at the moment?"

"Not at all, Minister. Would you like to step through?"

The Minister of Magic shook her head. "No, I'm afraid I can't. Too much to do. Thank you for the invitation, though. I was just calling to see how replacing your missing staff was going."

"Not as well as I hoped. Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank has agreed to take over the Care of Magical Creatures class for the year to see if she wants the job on a long-term basis, but that's about it. No one has applied for the Defense position, and so few people study history after graduating that my choices for that post are incredibly slim." Marchbanks sighed. "Are you sure I can't keep Umbridge for this year? I don't like her personally, but the OWL scores her fifth-years received as a whole were good."

"I'd be more than happy to leave her with you, but she requested I assign her somewhere else. Last I heard, she was working out well in her new posting as Junior Ambassador to the Spanish Ministry."

"Bit of a step down from Undersecretary to the Minister," the old witch pointed out.

"In some ways, perhaps," Bones agreed, "but I wasn't going to give her her old job back. I already have an undersecretary, one I like and trust far more than Dolores Umbridge, and there was no way I was going to put her back with Fudge. Even if I weren't worried about what trouble those two could cook up if they put their heads together, he's my ambassador to the Muggle Ministry. I'm not going to put someone who can't stand Muggles in a position like that."

Marchbanks frowned. "And you think Spain will be a better match for her views?"

"Her opinions on Muggles won't find much in the way of disagreement there, no," the Minister admitted. "But enough about her. I think I have a solution for your issues with filling the Defense post. One of my Aurors, Andrew Williamson, was injured by those Muggle fireleg things during the fight in Hogsmeade, and the Healers say it will take a full year before they clear him to return to fieldwork. Scrimgeour was going to stick him behind a desk for the year, but I know he'll hate that. Teaching would at least give him a chance to do something."

"That would be one problem solved," Marchbanks agreed with no little relief.

 _And even if we didn't want him, you could just use Educational Decree 22 to force him on us_ , Pomona thought unhappily. The deference Marchbanks showed to the Ministry rankled a little, if she were honest with herself; Hogwarts had always been autonomous, but now it seemed like everything they did had to be approved by someone in the Ministry. "There's always Severus. He has been applying to be the Defense professor for years."

"Fourteen years, to be specific," said Marchbanks. "If I gave it to him, though, all I would have done would be creating a hole for the Potions class instead of Defense. Nobody has applied for the Potions job, and it's already August, so trying to find a replacement would be just as hard as finding someone for Defense. I'm also not fond of the message that would send considering the accusations he faced of being a Death Eater. Besides," she added, "you were the one who was just complaining that I wasn't following the precedents Dumbledore set. He never gave Snape the Defense post, did he?"

Twisting her words around to use them as weapons against her? That was not fair in the slightest. Still, there was not much she could do to argue against them, not without weakening any appeals she would assuredly make later. "Those were charges he faced going on fifteen years ago," she said instead. "Charges he was cleared of. It's not right to hold them against him now."

"Actually," Bones cut in, "he was never properly investigated. Dumbledore spoke in his defense at a hearing, and everything stopped there. With what we know now, I would not give those protestations of innocence as much weight as they had at the time."

Marchbanks cleared her throat to regain the two women's attention. "I think Auror Williamson would work just fine, thank you. Let me know if he agrees, and I will speak with him about lessons plans, schedules, and the like." Once the flames died down, she turned irritated eyes on Pomona. "Would you like to explain just what that was about?"

"We have already had this discussion. I doubt anything will change by going through it again."

At that, the headmistress sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Pomona and Marchbanks had butted heads multiple times over the issue of how much Hogwarts should dance to the Ministry's tune, and the Herbology professor knew neither of them were willing to back down from their respective positions. Normally that was not a problem, but it did lend a certain tension to their working relationship. "I see. Moving on, then. The History post, what do you think about calling up Bathilda Bagshot? She did write the book on it, after all. Literally."

"It would solve that problem," she agreed. "And that is the last post we need to worry about. I'm just not sure about how well she will deal with the stress of teaching again…"

* * *

**Rowling claims that Nicolas Flamel was born in 1327. The Black Plague swept through Europe between 1346 and 1353, and it first hit France in 1348. For a 21-year-old man, that would have been a traumatic and life-altering event, and regardless of what his real goal in producing the Elixir of Life was, it should be easy to see how it might very well stem from living through that calamity.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	8. A New Regime

**I hope everyone has a merry Christmas tomorrow!**

**Disclaimer:**  For all the claims that Snape was really a hero in the series, did he try to have two men executed by the most vile means possible despite there being doubts about their guilt, all for the sake of a 17-year-old grudge? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 8  
** **A New Regime**

The door to the compartment the group shared slid open, and Tracey glanced up to see who it was intruding in their space. "Wondered when you'd finally get here," she said when Jen walked in and dropped her satchel to the floor. "We were starting to worry that we'd need to send out search parties for you. That or you missed the train."

"Nearly did," the black-haired heiress muttered before falling into an available seat. It was weird to have only seven of them around instead of eight, but it was something they all had to get used to now that Kenneth had graduated and moved on to work in his uncle's enchanting shop. "Some Wizengamot stuff came up, and Sirius insisted we wait until he had finished it so we could all go to the platform as a group. He didn't expect it to take as long as it did, though, and I barely had enough time to shrink my trunk, toss it in my bag, and Floo over before the Express pulled out. Then there was the prefects' meeting, so I couldn't come here to say hello until just now." Pulling Luna closer, Jen promptly dropped her head onto the top of the bench cushions and closed her eyes.

"Tired?" Morag asked.

"I've had a busy few weeks."

"Yeah, we know," Susan said with a teasing smile. "It was splashed all over the society pages in the  _Prophet_."

With a scoffing harrumph, Jen denied, "There were only two articles, and one of them was talking about us as a group, not just me. That is anything but 'splashed'."

The blonde next to her flicked her eyes back and forth between the two girls. "What are you talking about?"

Jen's momentary wince told Tracey that the other heiress probably did not want this tossed around so freely, and for reasons that were obvious in hindsight, but the redhead did not catch the fleeting expression. "It's courting season," explained Susan, "when all the heirs and heiresses start going on dates to see who they're… compatible…"

It was the uncharacteristic glare coming from the youngest member of their circle that cut Susan off, and that stare was quickly transferred to Jen. "Dates? What is she talking about?"

"It's part of the courting process. If I want to figure out what family will be joining with mine, I need to meet the people whose Houses have been sending me betrothal offers for the last month. Quit glaring," she suddenly ordered, and even though she still had her eyes closed, Tracey knew she had not had to rely on whatever trick she had used to get around while she was blind. Luna's glare could have been felt across a room. "I'm not going to go out with any of the suitors during the week, and only a few weekends, so I needed to get all of it out of the way sooner rather than later. That means I needed to pack twenty dates into thirty days, and trust me, that was not fun."

"Do you have some picked out yet?" the Scottish witch asked politely.

Jen snarled. "No, I don't. All of the ones I dealt with last month were absolutely awful."

Susan and Tracey made the mistake of glancing at each other, and then they had to hastily look away before they started laughing at the relief on their faces. Both of them were the acting Heads of their Houses, Susan because her aunt had stepped down in order to take over as Minister of Magic without them losing their voice in the Wizengamot and Tracey because Jen had murdered her grandfather, and as a result of those circumstances, they did not have to worry about the drama of finding a future husband until after they graduated. And, of course, they did not have significant others who were upset that they were going out with other people.

"Yes, yes, laugh it up, you two," Jen muttered grumpily. "I was going to warn you about a few wizards to stay away from, but now I won't. You can find out how bad they are on your own."

"Oh, come on, Jen. You wouldn't do that to us, would you?" Tracey asked in a pleading voice, though the smile on her face painted a different picture entirely.

Her fellow heiress raised her head and cracked one eye open to fix both Tracey and Susan with a purple glare. A moment passed while Jen seemed to weigh their sincerity, but finally she dropped her head back down. "Fine. I'll give you advice about one of them. If you get an offer for marrying Cassius McElroy, don't give it any serious consideration. Don't even lead him along to get some incentives out of him. Just turn the McElroys down and move on."

"Was he really that bad?" she could not help but ask. The McElroys were not necessarily a rich House, nor were they highly ranked, but that particular Noble House was one of the largest Neutral families in Britain and one of the best connected. It was rumored that they had family connections to every department in the Ministry and several of the bigger businesses in Diagon. For Jen to tell them to completely blow House McElroy off rather than entertaining Cassius for even one date was a surprise.

"Let me put it this way. Our time together involved a tour of his grandfather's estate and the surrounding land, including a long walk along the lake on their property, and he spent the entire time talking about how grateful I should be that he and I would soon be married and how I should appreciate being part of a House whose history is a tiny fraction of my own." She scoffed. "We can trace our line back to the ninth century for certain, and there is evidence that the Black family is a couple hundred years older than even that. Anyway, the whole time I spent on that lakeside, I wanted nothing more than to transfigure him into a loaf of bread and feed him to his blasted ducks.

"But enough about that." And wasn't it telling that Jen wanted to stop talking about this subject when Luna had relaxed slightly for the first time since it had been brought up? Tracey hid her smile; apparently even witches didn't like the idea of having their girlfriends angry at them. "What about the rest of you? How was your summer in India, Padma?"

"It could have been better," the Hindi girl said sadly. "We… Parv…" Taking a deep breath, she forced out, "The werewolves that attacked Hogsmeade last year were, in fact, able to pass their curse along. Even if Parvati wanted to come back, she couldn't. Werewolves aren't allowed to cross the national borders of ICW-affiliated countries." A few tears rolled down Padma's cheeks, and her voice was tight. "It's ironic, really. Before fourth year, Parvati liked being in this country much more than I did; she liked how permissive Britain was when it came to fashion and behavior, and she's the one who had a bunch of friends. Now she can never leave Asia again."

Padma let Susan pull her into a tight embrace, Morag leaving her spot by the window to squeeze in on the girl's other side. Tracey just shuffled away uncomfortably and grimaced at the commiserating look Jen shot her. She and Padma were not close friends, connected as they were by little beyond surviving Hagrid's idea of a Care of Magical Creatures class and their mutual friendship with Jen, and so she could not say for sure that whatever sympathies she offered would be accepted as more than the empty platitudes of strangers or distant acquaintances, no matter how sincere they were.

What could she say that would offer any comfort, anyway? That Asia was a big place, so Padma's sister would have plenty of places she could go if she decided she had enough of India? That she actually could leave the Conglomerate, but only if her destination was the lawless reaches of South America or Africa where there was no international or sometimes even national governance and where the regions were controlled by local plantation owners, corrupt officials, or outright warlords? That if she were really as popular as she always seemed to be at Hogwarts, she should have no trouble finding new friends wherever she found herself?

Tracey had always been told she had a sharp tongue and a tendency to drive people away with her abrasiveness. Between that and not having experience with friends prior to her fourth year at Hogwarts, extending comfort was a skill she did not have much experience with.

The expression on Jen's face looked plastic and stiff, something forced and not felt, but still she asked, "Has Parvati spoken with other Indian werewolves? I would expect them to form some kind of support structure, at least if they have organized themselves in a similar way to how the European packs have."

"That's probably the only good thing to come out of this mess," Padma agreed. "As soon as we knew she had been cursed, my grandmother sent a letter to the group we were told about when we had to inform the government about her getting bitten. She did say she has enjoyed spending time with all of them."

"Is that why you said she didn't want to come back?" asked Morag in a gentle voice.

"Partly." A grimace swept across Padma's face. "She didn't exactly want to come back after watching her best friend be mauled in front of her. It's one of the many issues she has deal with now that she's a wolf, too."

Susan shook her head in sorrow. "And Lavender Brown wasn't the only in our year to die in that fight, either, you know? Oliver Rivers, one of our housemates, lived through the attack itself, but my aunt said he passed away the day after. Lewis Elric in the year above ours, too, and Keisha Merritt was just a third-year."

"Every house lost people, and for every year it was two or three," Justin murmured.

Tracey wisely kept her mouth shut while the rest of the compartment nodded. Of all four houses, Slytherin had lost the fewest people, and those who had died were innocent of any wrongdoing just like the rest of the fallen. The children of Death Eaters and Death Eater sympathizers, on the other hand, had all been suspiciously absent from the village when the attack began. Why, it was almost as if they had been given early warning to stay away!

And, of course, the new second- and third-years had likewise come through unscathed, but that had nothing to do with their parents' political affiliations and everything to do with them hiding in the Shrieking Shack while Jen slaughtered her way over to them.

"Enough with the maudlin topics!" demanded Morag. "Someone had to have a good summer. Luna, you've been quiet so far. What did you do?"

"Well, Daddy did get a tip about a three-toed bandersnatch that was sighted in Derbyshire," the blonde eventually said. Bolstered by the encouraging nods of the group, she continued, "We decided to make a day-trip of it, so we…"

* * *

It was a rather subdued student body that settled in the Great Hall that evening. Not that such a somber mood was any surprise; the unusually large gaps in their ranks were much better at demonstrating the scale of Hogwarts's loss than straight numbers, and that was without the repeated discussions Jen had overheard concerning the thestrals everyone could now see pulling the school carriages. Nor was it a shock when a quick sweep over the Ravenclaw table revealed that the younger years had gravitated toward her and that the Slytherins in that age range had done the same around Tracey. When the children she had taken under her wing had been in danger during the battle, she had proven beyond all doubt that she would protect them, and now they presumably looked to her and, by extension, her friends for protection.

The Sorting of the newest students, on the other hand, was surprisingly unremarkable. The Hat sang a little ditty about how all the houses needed to work together – advice that, while true from a philosophical perspective, would do little to counter the ambitions of a megalomaniacal black wizard like Voldemort – and then it was just a matter of applauding when child after star-struck child was sent to the house of the wise and curious.

When Dumbledore was the headmaster, he had always waited until after dinner to make any important announcements. Marchbanks took a different approach. "Students," she said, her voice suppressing the varied conversations going on at the same time, "welcome to Hogwarts. For those of you who are returning, I am sure that your summer was less than ideal. Too many friends gone, too many people who passed through the Veil far before their time. To say merely that they will be missed does them all a grave disservice."

The staff were staring at her in shock and horror, and the students were also watching, expressions of astonishment plastered over their faces at the blunt honesty she was sharing with them. For her part, Jen felt her interest be piqued; Dumbledore was a master of talking around the point, one of his many irritating qualities, so this change was surprising and would almost certainly be welcome.

"After terrible events like what we experienced last year, it is not weakness to admit that you need help, nor is it strength to reject the comfort others are willing to provide," Marchbanks continued. "If you feel that you need someone to talk to, all the heads of house will make themselves available, or you may instead go to another professor or even come to me. Please do not make the mistake of struggling through your grief on your own.

"In happier news, I have a few announcements to make. There have been some changes to our staff over the summer. Madam Grubbly-Plank, whom I am sure several of you recognize, has agreed to join us as the full-time professor for Care of Magical Creatures." A witch with short grey hair stood for a moment and gave the Great Hall a wave; more than a few students clapped in delight at the news, Padma and Tracey among them. They had both commented more than once that they felt Grubbly-Plank had a far better understanding of how to deal with creatures than Hagrid ever had since she was a normal human like them rather than a half-giant with all the resilience that entailed. "Madam Umbridge was recalled to the Ministry and will not be able to grace us again with her knowledge, but she has been replaced by the august personage of Bathilda Bagshot. Professor Bagshot is the greatest expert on the history of magical Britain alive, and several would argue that even Professor Binns could not compete with her on sheer breadth of knowledge."

Bagshot was a positively ancient witch, withered and stooped, and she stood for just a moment before dropping back into her chair. She had been shaking after that short exertion, Jen noted. That was to be expected from someone who, if she remembered correctly, either was nearing the two-century mark or had already reached it, but she had to wonder at the wisdom of hiring on a professor at that extreme of age. Being magical extended people's lifespans, but it did not make them immortal.

"Teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year is Auror Andrew Williamson." This time it was the unknown wizard who rose, and he stood at parade rest and simply looked over the assembled students for a couple of moments. "Auror Williamson was scheduled to take this year off as a sabbatical, and he generously offered to spend that time here and share his expertise with you." Marchbanks did not say  _'And you had better appreciate it'_ , but that part of the message was still perfectly clear.

"It is also my regret to tell you that Mr. Filch has moved on to follow other pursuits. We wish him all the best." She had to shout that last part, yet her voice was still drowned out by the loud cheer that erupted from nearly every students' throat. No one had liked Filch, and to hear that he was gone? Interestingly, she did not seem shocked by the reaction, merely resigned. Nearly a minute passed before she could regain control over the masses. "And finally, the mayor of Hogsmeade recently told me that they have begun rebuilding the village, and so it will be available to visit once more sometime later this year.

"Those are all the announcements I wanted to make tonight. Enjoy your dinners, and good luck with your classes tomorrow!"

* * *

Sixth-year students from all four houses trudged into the DADA classroom on Monday afternoon. "Welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts," Williamson told them while they seated themselves at the desks. The Auror had bright red hair that was clipped close to his skull – though the military precision was undercut somewhat by the five o'clock shadow on his cheeks despite it being only shortly after noon – and flat blue eyes. Flicking her eyes over toward one of the Gryffindors taking the class, Jen nodded. There was indeed a bit of resemblance between Williamson and Weasley.

He started pacing across the front of the room as he spoke. "Let's get the obvious out of the way first. Yes, today is my first time teaching. The most I've ever done before this was a couple of skill demonstrations for Auror trainees. As a result, this class will probably be a little different from the ones you had before now. Your headmistress provided me with a syllabus for the different years, and for the younger students, I will be using that. For you and the seventh-years, however, I'm going to be doing something a little different and, honestly, more interesting. You've already proven that you have a good handle on the basics or you wouldn't be here in the first place, so we can jump right into the practical aspects. You have a question?" he asked when he saw Brocklehurst's raised hand.

"Yes, sir. Professor Flitwick was telling us earlier today that this year we will be expected to cast magic nonverbally." A moue of disgust crossed her face, which Jen knew was the result of her failure to accomplish the feat in question. "Are you going to require the same?"

"I would certainly recommend you learn to cast the spells I will teach you nonverbally," he answered after a moment's thought, "if for no other reason than that it makes them far more useful in a real-world scenario. The same goes for nonverbal casting in general; I can't tell you how many times I have gotten the advantage in a fight because the criminal I was facing told me what curse he was using ahead of time. But to answer your question, no, I will not require it." Brocklehurst smiled and nodded in understanding, and her smile only widened when he continued, "And a bit of advice for you on that subject: I have always found it easier to learn spells verbally and only then move on to casting them without speaking. If your professors give you a new spell they want you to use silently from the start, go ahead and give it a try while they're watching, but afterward it will probably work better to split it up into two steps. You might also want to practice by mouthing the words before moving on to keeping your mouths closed. It might not help much, but it will feel more familiar if nothing else."

Every student who had moved on to NEWT-level Charms beamed. That had been the hurdle Flitwick had told them they would all have to overcome, and exceptionally few had managed to do so by the time the bells rang for them to move on to their second-period class. Jen had been one of those particular individuals, mostly because her own unique circumstances meant she had never needed to learn any incantations in order to impose her will upon the world, and she and Flitwick had shared a conspiratorial glance when he walked over to check on her 'progress'.

Sadly, her good mood had not survived Runes. Babbling had told them that they would, in fact, learn how to use the Sumerian runes they were covering this year, but that part of the class would not start until November at the earliest. Sumerian cuneiform was no less complex than the Egyptian hieroglyphs they had learned the previous year, but working magic with them was even more complicated. Whereas Futhark, Ogham, and Egyptian runes could all be used independently, the writings of ancient Sumer only created their effects when fitted together; individual cuneiform just had too many potential and unrelated meanings for them to be used on their own. That, however, meant she needed to learn a large selection of characters before she could figure out how they should be arranged to do whatever bit of magic she wanted to perform.

Williamson clapped his hands. "Now, let's talk about what we will actually be doing. My specialty, and what I will be teaching you, is magical traps and defensive curses. Detecting them, setting them, and most importantly, disarming them. There will be some reading you'll have to do for this class, of course, but I won't assign essays or the like. I'm already going to have enough of that with the younger years," he added in an unhappy aside that widened a number of grins. "Your marks will instead be based on your preparation and in-class participation. I've already spoken with Headmistress Marchbanks, and she has assured me that the library contains several copies of the books I'll want you to read. Before we get to the good stuff, though, I think you could all use an introduction to basic curse-breaking and trap-work."

The rest of the class passed far too quickly for Jen's tastes. This was an interesting subject, far more than James Potter's military history lessons, and since it was about practical skills, it was something she could really use rather than just recite for an exam. Admittedly, her sonar would work better than a detection spell for actually finding traps in most situations because she did not have to actually cast it, but the information received from the detection spell would be easier to interpret than the interaction between the curse and the object.

Tracey waited until they had left the room before she said, "Did anyone else think he was glaring at us?"

"What are you talking about?" Morag asked, fixing the girl with a curious expression. "He wasn't glaring at anyone."

"I could swear he was glaring at me."

"Maybe you just have a guilty conscience," Jen quipped. Now it was Tracey who glared. "I don't know what to tell you. I didn't notice it, but that's not to say he wasn't. Maybe his family and yours has some history?"

"What kind of history are we talking about?" asked Susan. She had been talking to several of their housemates, but now they walked over to join the rest of the group. If only Justin and Padma were taking the class, Jen's collection of friends would be complete. "Who has history with whom?"

"Tracey thinks Williamson was glaring at her, but none of the rest of us saw anything like that," Luna explained.

A wince flashed across Susan's face. "Ah. I can't say if he was or wasn't, but I will say it isn't impossible. He was one of Auntie's bodyguards when he was still a fresh Auror, and I think I remember him speaking badly about Slytherins a couple of times."

"Wonderful," Tracey groused.

Jen opened her mouth to shoot off another barb, but it clacked shut when she felt the three individuals who had broken off from the rest of the class follow after them. She muttered sarcastically, "Just who I wanted to deal with." Luna glanced over at her in confusion until the leader of the party spoke.

"Black."

"Potter," she said, turning around to show him an obviously fake smile. "I actually hoped you had forgotten about me over the summer. It would have made this year far more enjoyable."

The Potters' son sighed. "Do you have to act like such a bitch to everyone?"

"Have to?" she asked lightly. "No, but I see no point in wasting my limited patience on people whose opinions of me mean nothing."

Her words were clearly straining Potter's own patience. Good. Maybe he would take the hint and walk away before he – not for the first time – tempted her to murder him and his friends despite all the witnesses scattered about. "I was going to thank you for helping us fight Voldemort last year, but now I'm starting to rethink that decision."

"Me helping you?" she repeated with a touch of incredulity. "I seem to remember it being the other way around, but fine. You're welcome. If that's all you wanted…" The urge to wave her hand dismissively was mastered, but only just.

To her great displeasure, Potter did not take the hint. "Can I ask you a personal question? Why do you act like this?"

Her grin was sharp and brittle. "Act like what, exactly?"

"Like this!" he insisted blindly, throwing his arms into the air. His dramatics drew the attention of the other teens who had not yet walked out of earshot. "You were willing to fight Voldemort, so you can't be a terrible person at heart, but as soon as it was over – before it was over, even – you went back to acting the same way you always do. You're cold and rude to people who haven't done anything to you, you can't admit that anyone can do anything better than you, and you're perfectly happy to lie and cheat to make yourself look better no matter who it hurts. Why?"

He wanted to know why? Oh, that was a simple explanation: she was not some worthless member of the Light, not a weak-minded fool who was so busy not looking at how the world really worked that she had to be led around by the hand. She was a black witch, someone who had worn the mantle of a god and had wrapped herself in the cruel power of the Darkness, and she did what she willed. He was just a child bleating in fear at something he could never comprehend, and for that – among several other reasons – she despised him. But telling him that, even if she were willing to part with that secret, would do no good. He did not really want to hear her reasons and explanations; he just wanted to scold her into conforming to the pathetic black-and-white morality he had never outgrown where nice people were good and only did good things and mean people were bad and only did bad things. Where the villains could be beaten by love and the heroes all stood together to suckle at the teat of Albus Dumbledore. What was it with the damn Potters and their insistence on turning everyone into reckless, short-sighted, weak-hearted followers?

Hmm. There was an idea.

"You want to know why?" she asked in a saccharine voice, and around her her friends grimaced in unison. They knew that voice meant nothing good. "I could say it's because true good and evil are far rarer than storybooks make them out to be. More often, what one person thinks is good is really just something that benefits him, and what he considers evil he does not like. I could say I am not rude to everyone. I'm rude to you because I don't like you, I don't like your mother, and I outright despise your father, yet you insist on bothering me anyway. We would both be much happier if you would just leave me alone." She gave him a nasty smile and leaned a little closer. Their audience was paying attention; good. "But what I think I'll say instead is that you irritate me because you're a nasty coward who calls himself brave and good."

"What did you say?!" Weasley demanded.

"You heard me." Her eyes swept over the gathered students. "I gave you a chance, remember? I put myself in danger so you could bring down You-Know-Who. All you had to do to end this war was curse him, but you couldn't do it. No, you decided to spare him instead!" The crowd started to mutter quietly, then not-so-quietly, and Potter stared at her in confusion that rapidly turned into disbelief. Yes, she was going to take the weak-heartedness he had displayed during the battle in Hogsmeade and turn it against him, and if it twisted the conversation away from what he had planned to discuss, so much the better. Like she had told him, she had no patience to waste on irritants like him. "How many people have died between then and now, I wonder? How many people will die in the future at his command? Their blood is on your hands. All you had to do was take the shot," she bit out, "but you didn't. When forced to choose between You-Know-Who and the world, you chose him. And you dare call anyone else evil?"

Potter took a step closer, his teeth gritted. "That's not what happened, and you know it."

"That's exactly what happened! What was it you said? It wouldn't be 'decent' to put him down like a rabid dog? No, of course, it's much more moral to stand aside and do nothing." She stepped away and shrugged, acting for all the world as though she had not just accused him of being a closeted Death Eater sympathizer. Granger, at least, seemed to understand the consequences of that revelation, and the sight of the increasingly agitated teenagers around them made her eyes grow wide. "I hope that answers your question."

Jerking her head down the corridor, she and her friends beat a hasty exit before the wolves had a chance to fall upon them, too.

* * *

Without a fourth-period class to occupy the next ninety minutes, Jen was able to make decent headway on her translations for Babbling before it was time for her last class of the day: Potions.

She had to wonder what Snape would be like this year. It was no secret that he had had designs on the Defense Against the Dark Arts post for years, and for that dream to once more be snatched out from within his grasp? It was enough that he might be very, very nasty. On the other hand, this was the NEWT-level course, and with his exacting standards, there would be no one around that he could not tolerate. If nothing else, they were all smart enough and skilled enough that they could focus on their brewing and give him fewer targets to lash out against.

Finding herself in the dungeons several minutes early, she was beyond shocked to see her second-years pour out wearing smiles of all things on their faces. Several of the kids waved when they spotted her, and she could only wave back numbly. Snape terrified the younger children; he had been placed on probation the previous year for that very reason! What in the Baron's name could have happened over the summer for those same students to be happy?!

Her question was answered when a door farther down the hallway opened and the wizard in question stepped out.

"I was wondering what happened to you over the summer," she said in a teasing lilt once he walked over. "Baby Hufflepuffs came out smiling! I was worried you had experienced some event that had left you traumatized. Petted a puppy or smelled some roses or found a lover. The horror."

"Don't you have class you were supposed to be in?" he shot back, though with far less of a bite than she normally heard in his voice. "Some reason to be anywhere but here?"

"Nope."

There was, thankfully, someone inside the room waiting for Snape, a seventh-year Slytherin whom she did not know. It was reassuring to know that thirty second-years had not been left alone to flounder through the myriad dangers of Potions alone. The assistant passed a few rolls of parchment over and told Snape that the students' vials were in the box on the floor by the desk, and then he took off for his own class. "As you have probably guessed," the black-garbed wizard said before she could say anything, "Marchbanks was far more amenable to my request of letting some seventh-years help teach the first and second years of Potions than Dumbledore was. It means I don't have to bother catching all their idiotic mistakes, and I made sure the rewards I offered were enough that it does not look like I am taking advantage."

"And you get to take the period off."

"Only the second half," he denied. "By that point, any problems that were likely to arise would have been minor ones, so I could leave to get some peace and quiet and start grading essays without worrying about any potential disasters."

Jen nodded agreeably. She had no idea if that was true or not, but even if he was foisting the entire job onto the younger wizard, it was really not her place to cry foul. No, something else he had said was what caught her interest. "What do you mean by rewards?"

"Nothing monetary or unprofessional," he dismissed with a lazy wave of his hand. "A degree of leniency with their essays because I am taking away time they could be using to study, and for those who are interested in research, an opportunity to assist me in my experiments. It is amazing what having your name on an article in  _The Practical Potioneer_  can do for getting into one of the more competitive Potions Masteries."

By this point, some of the other sixth-years started filtering in, and she stepped away to set up her own workstation. Potter and Weasley did not walk in, which she considered a very good thing, but Granger glared enough for all three of them when she spotted Jen. Everyone was present and situated when the bells rang, which was for the best since the door immediately slammed shut and locked itself. "This is NEWT-level Potions," Snape said without preamble. "To be here, you achieved an Outstanding on your OWL exam. After five years, you have finally proven that you are not total incompetents and fools. Or, at least, that you can be trusted with a cauldron without killing yourselves.

"That does not mean you are now true potioneers. No, you are still far away from that honor, despite how large your egos have undoubtedly grown since receiving your results. But!" The entire class jumped in surprise when he shouted and whirled around, one finger raised in the air. "Perhaps you can be. Not today, not tomorrow, but maybe by the time you leave this school, I will not be completely ashamed to admit that I taught you. Some of you, some very small number, I might even be willing to call colleagues in the not-too-distant future. I doubt it, but if you want to make it your goal to prove me wrong?" He shrugged. "Who am I to deny you? Your own failures will do a far better job at putting you in your places than I can."

Jen was not the only one grinning in spite of the hefty doses of condescension mixed in with that introduction. Considering the way Snape normally talked to his classes, this was positively encouraging! Then again, how many people in this class had gotten as good at potions as they were by focusing on how much they wanted the 'dungeon bat' to eat his words? Maybe Snape did know what he was doing with his teaching style, where the older years were concerned if nothing else.

Or maybe he had adjusted his approach after Umbridge put him on probation. He no longer had Dumbledore sticking up for him regardless of what he said or did, after all.

"We have wasted enough time already," the professor continued. A wave of his wand made writing appear on the chalkboard at the front of the room. "I have been forced to coddle you over the last few years, but that stops here. Now you will have no one to rely on but yourselves. You have the directions; you know where the ingredients are. Begin."

* * *

**Ugh, finally. This should be the last courting-dating-whatever-related scene for the next several chapters. This subplot has taken up far too much of the story's focus lately.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	9. Honoured Guests

**Disclaimer:**  After learning at the end of book 5 that Dumbledore had knowingly sent him to an abusive home and had withheld vital information for at best a pitiful reason, was Harry still proud to be considered "Dumbledore's man" in book 6? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 9  
** **Honored Guests**

No one looked askew at Tracey when she dropped onto one of the benches running down the length of the Ravenclaw table during the breakfast hour. Once, that would have earned her a curious glance or two at the least, or maybe even a polite demand to go back to the Slytherin table; now, however, her presence was completely unremarkable. She did not know if that was the result of her spending so many meals sitting there with her friends and allies, the majority of whom were Ravenclaws themselves, or if Jen had said something to someone to get them all to back off. Maybe they were just happy to have another body to fill up the empty seats at the table.

However it had happened, she was thankful. There was a reason she preferred not to hang around with her housemates: being the lone Halfblood in the house known for its support of blood purity was far from the most enjoyable experience in the world.

Morag and Padma – and when had she started thinking of them by their first names? – gave her brief waves before returning their attention back to their plates. Luna, however, fixed her with a curious expression. "Is something the matter?"

"What?" she asked dumbly. "Why would you ask that?"

The blonde just smiled mysteriously, and it was Jen who finally said, "Are we supposed to take from your non-answer that there is something wrong?"

"Not wrong, really. Weird, but not wrong." All four Ravenclaws gave her their undivided attention. "It's Malfoy. I've been watching him, and—"

"If you say that you're starting to fancy him, I will slap you until you regain your senses."

"No, I'm not interested in your cousin," she told the Black heiress with a roll of her eyes. "He's been acting oddly ever since we came back. Keeping to himself, brushing off Parkinson; just a couple of months ago, he enjoyed her fawning over him, even if he wasn't actually interested in her. Now he goes out of his way to avoid her. He's even taken to ignoring Crabbe and Goyle. They're pulling muscle duty for Nott now," she added to her best friend's raised eyebrow.

With a shrug of her shoulders, Morag pointed out the obvious. "So? It's not like it matters what Malfoy does. If he wants to run off to the corner to mope, that's not our problem."

"Does he do anything when he's by himself?" Jen asked in a thoughtful tone. "Writing things down, reading books he doesn't want anyone else looking at? Anything?"

"He writes some stuff down in a little book he keeps in his pocket, but most of his time he spends staring into the fire," admitted Tracey.

"Morag's probably right, then. After—" Cutting herself off, Jen narrowed her eyes for a moment before she leaned a little closer to the brunette and spoke softly. "After he relayed a message to me from You-Know-Who, I'm willing to think he might have some plot he's acting on. But," she continued at a normal volume, "if all he has done is sit and stare into the fire, then there's likely little to be concerned about. Who knows?" She smiled cruelly. "Maybe he's brooding over the three Death Eaters who died in the raid last week."

That was a possibility she had not considered. For a small group of Death Eaters to go on a raid and burn down three Muggleborns' houses was no great shock. That's what they did. The Aurors arriving on site and not even pretending to capture them but instead going straight for the kill? That was a little more surprising. The  _Daily Prophet_  had been quick to trumpet the victory and publish the names of the deceased, though it had given her little comfort when she realized she recognized all three of them as older Snakes who had still been students when she entered Hogwarts. Even though she had not liked them in the slightest, to find out that people she knew personally had gone on to become murderers was disturbing.

Anti-Slytherin sentiment inside the castle had never been higher, and if she were honest with herself, that was yet another reason to hide herself amongst the Ravens. Here, she was familiar enough that she could just blend in with the rest of Jen's retinue.

"I'm still going to keep an eye on him," she insisted. "There's something off about the way he's acting besides the fact that it's different from what he normally does. I can't put my finger on it, but I can still see it."

"It's your time. You can spend it however you like," Jen said with a shrug. "Come on and finish up. We don't have a first-period class today, and I have yet to read the chapter Williamson wanted us to go through before this afternoon."

Tracey nodded, suspicions about the former prince of Slytherin placed on the back burner. For now.

* * *

Dora had to dance back when the door she was about to pass in front of was thrown open, and the knob still nearly caught her in the gut. "—and tell them to keep the pressure on him," Scrimgeour said while he and Robards stepped out, though only the former spotted her. Inwardly, she wiped her brow and thanked her lucky stars; she could handle a variety of embarrassments, but being found knocked over on her rear by both the director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Chief Auror? Not one of them. Her clumsiness might be infamous, but there was no reason to go reminding her boss and her boss's boss about it. "Someone like him? He'll crack sooner or later, and I want to be there once he does. If he knows anything at all, we're going to squeeze it out of him."

Robards nodded and ducked back into the room, and Scrimgeour turned away to walk to his office. "Director?" she said, calling his attention back to her. "Was that Shunpike you were talking about, sir?"

"Yes, it was." He looked her up and down for a moment before his scowl relaxed. "You were part of the group that brought him in, weren't you? Last minute substitution for Etheridge."

"Yes, sir. Has he started talking yet?" Her eyes flickered to the now-closed door for just a second before returning to him. This really was not her area – Aurors were involved in arresting and investigating suspected dark wizards, including basic questioning, but the full interrogations necessitated by severe crimes like terrorism and high treason were handled by a completely different office within the department – and technically, any right to information she had ended as soon as Shunpike was taken through that door. Still, maybe if he was in a good mood, he'd share what they had found out so far in this stage of the investigation.

Apparently he was because he shook his head, the motion setting his shaggy mane of brown hair flying. "No, he's kept silent so far. There's been plenty of time since you arrested him, though, so we can safely assume he doesn't have a solicitor coming, and after eight hours, the interrogators start getting a little more confrontational. If he has anything to say, they'll get it out of him sooner or later."

"What do you think?" she finally asked. "Do you think he really is a Death Eater?"

That was the question that had been bothering her ever since she had put him in a Full Body-Bind. When one of their Floos flared late the night before, every Auror present had rejoiced upon learning that Stan Shunpike, the conductor for the Knight Bus, had been overheard at a pub discussing the Death Eaters' upcoming raids. Finally, they had a lucky break, a chance to apprehend a spectacularly loose-lipped member of the terrorists they had been hunting down ever since Jen was kidnapped by Voldemort just over a year previously. That excitement had lasted until the group of six Aurors barged into his tiny house and tore the place apart while he lay immobilized on the ground.

They did not find a single piece of concrete evidence. No Death Eater regalia, no maps or letters detailing future plans, no poisons, no books of curses. Neither did the man have a Dark Mark on his arm, though that by itself meant nothing; toward the end of the war the last time, the Aurors had learned that the Marks had to be earned and that new recruits would not carry one until they had proven themselves to be capable and conscienceless killers. Still, it did not paint a promising picture, and a few of them had wondered if Shunpike might have been misheard or even framed, which meant they had just arrested someone who had done nothing wrong. The criticism and distrust she knew they would suffer in the short term if that proved to be the case were going to be terrible.

What were they supposed to do, though? If they learned that someone had claimed to be a Death Eater, were they supposed to blow the information off and potentially let an amoral monster go around torturing and murdering people with impunity? They had to take all reports like this seriously if they to do their job and keep Britain safe.

Scrimgeour's lips narrowed into a thin line. "I don't know. My head tells me he's probably not. Maybe he was set up. Maybe it was someone near him and the woman who called it in got him mixed up with the other guy. Maybe he really did say those things but it was because he wanted to look big and bad for his mates. Boasting about being a terrorist of all things is beyond stupid, but throw alcohol in the mix and it's possible." Huffing, he shook his head. "My gut, on the other hand? My gut says he's hiding  _something_ , and I want to know what it is."

A purple paper airplane picked that moment to soar toward them. It hung in the air for just a moment before dropping into Scrimgeour's waiting hands, and he sighed as soon as he unfolded it. "Auror Tonks, what is your opinion on Dumbledore?"

"He altered kids' minds, he's done nothing of worth to help in the war despite his claims to the contrary, and he messed with my cousin. I'd love to shove him in a cell and throw away the key, but if you need me to work with him, I'll do my best to put it aside," she answered honestly.

"Good. Come with me."

She trotted along behind him, not sure exactly why he wanted her around for this but more than willing to be part of it. While accolades and promotion in the Auror Corps were primarily based on merit and experience, there was still an element of politicking and networking in the mix. It might not be as prominent as it was in the rest of the Ministry's departments, but it was there. Bones had given her several words of praise following the Battle of Hogsmeade, and since the monocle-wearing witch was likely to retake the director's spot once the war was over, that was a great sign for her career, but it couldn't hurt to impress Scrimgeour, as well. Regardless of whether he would be sent back down to Chief Auror or would just leave a list of commendations for his successor to look through, any advantage she could get was worth it, especially since her and her mother's reinstatement into House Black back in 1994 had opened doors she had been sure were closed to her forever.

She wasn't the most politically minded person around, but it was hard to be in the same family as Sirius and Narcissa and Jen without picking up a few things here and there.

The reason Scrimgeour had asked her opinion about Dumbledore became clear as soon as they reached the front of the departmental office, for there the old man stood. And Danny Potter was there right next to him, because clearly this was just her lucky day. "Director Scrimgeour, good morning," Dumbledore said with only a tiny glance in her direction. Good, he was not going to make their relationship out to be more than it was. Not that there was much of one to begin with; after that first Order meeting she had attended, she had decided it really held little benefit for her. If any important information was discussed, she was sure Sirius and Narcissa would pass it along to her. "I hoped we could have a minute to talk about a few things."

"Your minute starts now," Scrimgeour told them, a scowl deepening on his leonine face. "I hope you haven't come here just to waste my time again."

Dumbledore harrumphed and tugged his robes straighter. "Very well. Is it true that you have taken a young man by the name of Stan Shunpike into custody on the accusation that he is a Death Eater?"

"The  _Daily Prophet_  got that one right, yes."

"That is a bit of a problem," Dumbledore said with a frown. "You see, Mr. Shunpike is not a Death Eater. You've arrested the wrong man."

"Not according to our witness," shot back Scrimgeour. For someone who a couple of minutes ago had listed all the ways that Shunpike might not be a terrorist, he was doing a remarkable job keeping his doubts hidden. He was not going to show any vulnerability here. "She was quite definite that Shunpike claimed that he was a Death Eater and that had detailed information of their plans. We're just taking him at his word."

"Surely it is obvious that was just baseless boasting. You were a young man at one time, too, Scrimgeour; you should remember what it was like to have that drive to show off." It was amazing how quickly Dumbledore could change tack, Dora had to admit to herself, even if it meant abandoning his previous position without a thought.

Her boss hummed thoughtfully, or at least it sounded that way. The truth was revealed when he replied, "Try as I might, I can't remember ever bragging about torturing people just because they didn't have magic or killing a bunch of kids while they were out enjoying a Hogsmeade weekend." The reference to that massacre did not go unnoticed, and Potter grimaced while Dumbledore's reaction was just a narrowing of the eyes. Scrimgeour smiled nastily. "Maybe it was different back when you were growing up, but my generation? We called actions like that  _evil_ , and the people who took part in them, too."

"And so it is, but the fact remains that Mr. Potter has proof that Mr. Shunpike is not part of the Death Eaters." Turning to the boy, the old wizard waved his hand as though ushering Potter onto a stage. "Please tell them what you told me."

Potter swallowed but took a step forward, standing beside Dumbledore now rather than a pace behind. "Stan likes to brag," he said in a tentative voice that soon grew stronger with anger. "But that's it. At the Quidditch World Cup, he was telling people that he was the youngest Minister of Magic in history. You can't take anything he says seriously. And you definitely can't go around arresting people just to make it look like you're doing something! That's the kind of thing Fudge did. Do you want to be compared to him?!"

Dora felt her face grow stiff at the accusation that she and her fellow Aurors were just acting out a show of some kind. They were the ones putting their lives on the line day after day to keep little shits like him safe from the monsters walking among the populace. She could not read Scrimgeour's expression beneath the blank mask he now wore, but from the set of the wizard's shoulders, she knew that he was no more amused at this nonsense than she was.

"Is that so?" he asked in a clipped voice. Anyone who had ever worked under the man knew that voice was a sign to find shelter and bunker down before he exploded, and right now she was glad to be on the other side of Mount Scrimgeour's eruption. To her surprise, he did something else. "You know Shunpike well enough to offer character evidence? Well enough that you are willing to be put under oath and have your testimony recorded and submitted to the court in case he is tried?"

"Yes, I would," Potter said in a belligerent tone.

Dumbledore, on the other hand, blanched a bit when Scrimgeour's expression shifted into a sharklike grin. "Excellent," the director said. "Auror, escort Mr. Potter and Mr. Dumbledore to interview room 2. I will be there in a moment."

 _Ouch_ , she thought as she led the pair down the hallways to the interview rooms. While she did not know what Scrimgeour had seen that had turned his mood around so quickly, she doubted it was going to be good for Potter. She had never had the opportunity to watch him interview a suspect, but she had heard from Mad-Eye that he often possessed a carefree attitude like this right before he tore a suspect's alibi to shreds. Scrimgeour, she was told, did not just look like a lion; he could also smell the weakness in his prey and waited until the time was right to pounce and rip out their jugulars.

Once they were inside, Dumbledore turned to regard her for a silent moment. "I don't know if you realized this, but the Order has had several meetings since the one you attended. The invitation we extended you was not a one-time offer."

"I'm aware of that," she said with a nod, "just like I'm aware that you had other meetings."

"Perhaps if I speak with Kingsley, he could arrange to have himself placed as your partner so you could both make it—"

She shook her head. "I didn't miss your meetings because I couldn't get off work. I missed them because I have no interest in being part of your little club."

"These are dark times we live in, Nymphadora," he warned. "If we want the Light to survive, we need to stand together."

"Except for when it comes to standing together with the Ministry, which you clearly have a terrible time following through on. Kind of like you're doing right now." Dora scoffed. "If you were really serious about working together, you would let us do our job. All you're doing now is making the fight against the Death Eaters that much harder."

"Arresting someone for a crime he did not commit is not fighting the Death Eaters; it is just aiding their cause by painting the Ministry as an institution that deserves to be torn down. If you could give me the name of the Auror who arrested Mr. Shunpike," Dumbledore wheedled, "I would dearly love to explain to him just how counterproductive his actions this morning were. Perhaps it would be a chance to head off any further miscarriages of justice like this one, though with the general attitude of your coworkers, I don't know how much he would care."

"Well, congratulations. You're looking at her."

The door opened, and Scrimgeour walked in just in time to catch Dumbledore and Potter staring at her in a blend of disdain and shock. His eyebrows rose, but at the small shake of her head she gave him, he dismissed it and sat in the chair opposite Potter. The petite witch who had followed behind him stood to the left of his chair and set down on the table a roll of parchment and a DictaQuill that was quivering in anticipation. "7 September, 1996. This is the interview of Daniel Potter, who is here to present character evidence regarding one Stanley Shunpike, currently under arrest and investigation for ties to the terrorist–insurrection group known as the Death Eaters. Mr. Potter is a minor and is accompanied by Albus Dumbledore. Interviewer is Rufus Scrimgeour, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Also present are Nymphadora Tonks, Auror, and Michelle Kendrick, Ministry notary.

"Mr. Potter, do you swear on your honor, your family name, and your gift of magic to tell the truth as you know it during this interview?"

Potter blinked in confusion at the formal-sounding oath and glanced up at Dumbledore. Not that that was a surprise; the last part was one Dora had needed to discuss with any number of witness and explain to them that no, it was not a magical oath and would not turn them into Squibs or any such thing. It was just the customary vow anyone who was testifying in court would need to recite so that the Wizengamot members serving as magistrates could trust that what they were hearing was the truth. Upon getting a nod, Potter cleared his throat and answered, "Yes, I swear."

"Good. Before this interview started, you told me that you knew Mr. Shunpike could not be a Death Eater because he likes to brag about things he did not actually do and this is just another example of that habit. Is that correct?"

"Yes, but—"

Scrimgeour cut him off. "What other times has he made outrageous claims like this?"

"Well, I already told you about how he said he was going to be Minister. He was showing off for some Veela during the World Cup."

"For clarification, this was the Quidditch World Cup of 1994." Without waiting for confirmation, he prompted, "Tell me about other instances of this behavior."

"Er. Well. Um." Potter was sweating and going pale, and  _there_  was the sharp smile Scrimgeour had been wearing before he sent them here. "That's… That's the only one I know of, but I'm sure he's done stuff like this before. He's not—"

"So just to be clear, you know of only one time when Mr. Shunpike made up a tale for self-aggrandizement, specifically one when the presence of multiple Veela was a likely contributing factor. Would you say that is correct?"

"Yes, but—"

"I'm curious, Mr. Potter. When did you first meet Mr. Shunpike?"

The boy blinked, apparently caught off-guard by Scrimgeour's relentless questioning and the sudden change of topic. "I needed to catch the Knight Bus to get back home after visiting my friend Ron. There was a problem with the Floo, and Mrs. Weasley had a bunch of other things to do, so she couldn't Apparate me. Stan was working as the conductor."

"And this was when?"

"Summer '93. It was right after Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban."

The director nodded in understanding. "And how long did you and Mr. Shunpike speak with each other on that occasion?"

"I don't really know. Maybe five minutes."

Dumbledore was now staring at the boy as though he had never seen such a thing before and was not quite sure what to make of this new creature he had stumbled upon. Scrimgeour, however, just continued on. "And how often did you and he converse following that meeting?"

"Uh…" Potter winced as he realized where this was going. "Well, that was the only time he and I really talked, but—"

"Let me make sure I have this straight, Mr. Potter," asked Scrimgeour in a voice of blatantly fake astonishment. Dora shook her head; it was a good thing tones were not recorded by the DictaQuill. "You came here to protest Mr. Shunpike's innocence based on your knowledge of his character, but now you are saying that your total interaction with him consisted of a single conversation lasting perhaps five minutes. Would you say that is an accurate summary?"

"I guess…"

Dora and Kendrick could only watch as he went in for the kill. "Please explain something to me, if you would be so helpful. Do you honestly believe that a five-minute conversation is enough to determine the details of someone's character to the point that you can state with any conviction whatsoever whether Mr. Shunpike was or was not capable of the crimes for which he has been accused?"

"Look, just because you've made up your mind about him doesn't mean he did it," Potter protested hotly. Dumbledore grabbed his shoulder in a silent demand to be silent before he did any more damage, but the teenager just kept going. "It's obvious that he isn't a Death Eater. You arrested him to make yourselves look good instead of going after actual Death Eaters, and all you're doing is patting yourselves on the back and letting the real bad guys get away!"

With a satisfied smile, Scrimgeour turned to the quill. "Interview was terminated at this point as it was obvious the presumed character witness had nothing of substance to offer." Plucking the bronze feather off the parchment, he took the regular quill Kendrick offered him and signed his name underneath the transcript with a flourish. "Auror Tonks, would you be willing to sign as a witness? Thank you."

Potter had fallen silent during this, and a glance at his betrayed face and glare at Dumbledore proved that it was due to a Silencing Charm being cast on him rather than him running out of things to say. Dumbledore cleared his throat and said, "While Danny's testimony is perhaps less than convincing, the fact still remains that there is no evidence that young Shunpike had any dealings with—"

"Oh, please," Scrimgeour said in the most dismissive tone Dora had ever heard from him. "You don't have a shred of proof one way or another about Shunpike. Your 'witness' doesn't know a thing about him, and I doubt you know much more. This whole thing was yet another waste of time. I hope you're proud of yourself."

"How low the defenders of the law have fallen if this is what you consider just," Dumbledore pronounced ominously.

The DMLE director laughed at that, the sound derisive in the extreme. "You'll have to excuse me if I don't think much of your opinion of right and wrong. If it weren't for Minister Bones taking pity on you, you wouldn't have been able to walk in here without getting tackled and collared. I have little patience for criminals, and that's all you are. Now, if you would be so kind," he said while brushing off the front of his robes, "take your little mouthpiece and get out of my department before I start thinking you're trying to impede an official investigation. That'll see you stuck inside a cell, you know, and I'm sure I can find someone who could be convinced to drag you there." He did not look at Dora, but she would not have minded if he had. For all that she had once almost worshipped the ground he walked on, Dumbledore had shown the world his true colors as far as she was concerned.

"You would let a minor incident like this destroy the working relationship you have with the Order of the Phoenix?" Dumbledore said, crossing his arms as he played what he must have thought was his trump card. "After all the good we've done—"

"The vast majority of which is only in your own mind," taunted Scrimgeour with a near-sneer of disgust. "I was serious, Dumbledore. Go way, take the boy, and leave this fight to people who actually know what they're doing. Interfere with us again"—here he tapped the transcript and curled the corners of his mouth into a mocking smirk—"and I'll just have to ask Minister Bones for forgiveness for overstepping her orders when I see you in Azkaban. I expect she won't mind that much."

Finally seeing that he would not find a sympathetic ear anywhere in the building – Kingsley was out on an investigation and Mad-Eye was retired, though how sympathetic the old Auror would really be after hearing about this was up for debate – Dumbledore hauled Potter to his feet and all but dragged him out the door. Silence reigned in the room for a few seconds before Dora asked, "Director? How did you know Potter's testimony was going to be worthless?"

"I didn't know, exactly, but I did read your team's after-action reports," he said with a shrug. "From your description of his house and his job, he didn't sound like someone the elder Potters would be close to. They walk in entirely different social circles. And the age gap was too wide for him and Shunpike to be friends without some really weird circumstances coming into play. And, if it turned out Potter really did know him well, that would be one fewer witness we would need to go looking for to determine his guilt or innocence."

"So why not talk to him at the front or in your office? Putting him under oath if you expected it to be worthless just seems a bit… excessive."

Scrimgeour eyed her for a moment before he turned to the notary. "That's all we needed, Mrs. Kendrick. Thank you very much for your assistance on such short notice." Once the other witch was gone, he looked into Dora's eyes. "What I am about to tell you does not leave this room, understood?"

She nodded.

"Ever since Bones gave him a provisional pass on his crimes, Dumbledore has been trying to slip in and change the way the DMLE approaches this war. He hasn't done anything illegal, but a couple of times his actions could be interpreted as skirting that line. It's gotten to the point that Robards, the other sub-department heads, and I can't use the intelligence his Order is passing along to us because it's likely as not, possibly even more likely, that the information has been sanitized or otherwise falsified in an attempt to make us respond a certain way." He shook his head. "I don't know if Dumbledore is doing it because he wants to fight this war like it's a game or he's trying to make us look bad and himself look good in comparison or what, but whatever his reason, he is knowingly and intentionally hindering our operations.

"But this?" He picked up the roll of parchment. "This could be his undoing if he keeps pushing. Even he didn't know how baseless Potter's protests were, but that doesn't matter. His name is now officially linked with this testimony, and if I catch him doing something shady, this transcript will establish that whatever he does is part of a larger pattern. It probably won't be enough to charge him with anything, but it might be enough to convince Bones to let us bring him in on the previous charges of unauthorized Memory Charms and illegal mental tampering. Anything we can do to get him off the streets would be a benefit," he spat.

Dora could not argue with the latter part, but the first half troubled her. "Do you really think the Order is giving us bad intel?"

"I don't know. But is trusting it a chance we can really take? I'm not going to send you and the other Aurors to your deaths because Dumbledore is pursuing his own agenda and thinks we are acceptable losses. Now, if we had someone who could bring us their information directly, someone we could trust not to use that as an opportunity to manipulate us…"

"Are… Are you asking me to go undercover inside the Order?" she asked in astonishment. "Because I think I've already burnt that bridge beyond any hopes of repair."

Thankfully, he shook his head. "No, I'm not. You would be far more effective doing your work than going off to gallivant with Dumbledore's cadre. I do, however, know that you have family in the Order – your Head of House admitted it to me when I asked him about it, along with his reasoning for rejoining – and Mad-Eye never kept his membership a secret. If you hear anything you can pass on, put it down as intel from an anonymous source. That should provide a little bit of cover from any eyes they have in the department, and hopefully it will help us determine how much we can really trust them."

She nodded, but then she had to swallow. If the relationship between the Order and the Ministry was that bad, there was one bit of information she knew that she might need to reveal. And if the Order was actively trying to deceive them, there was no  _'might'_ about it. "Er, sir? If you're worried that the Order plans to stab us in the back"—she took a deep breath and forced herself to keep going, though she dropped her eyes to keep from seeing Scrimgeour's reaction—"you need to give Auror Shacklebolt's reports more scrutiny. He's a member, too, and he isn't even willing to admit that Dumbledore might have used Memory Charms while he was headmaster. If he had to choose between us and the Order, I don't know where he would stand."

There. It was done. She had never, not once, thought that she would sell out another Auror, but in this situation she had no choice. If Scrimgeour was wrong, making Kingsley out to be a potential traitor was a professional embarrassment and would make her the pariah of the Corps; it might even cost her her job. If he was right, holding her tongue would cost her brothers- and sisters-in-arms their lives. It was a risk, but one she had to take. The alternative was unacceptable.

"We know," he told her gently. Her eyes shot up to stare at him. "We've been watching him for a while. He has yet to step out of line, and I hope he never does, but it's a warranted precaution. The information about his doubts is new, though." He took a step closer and laid one hand on her shoulder. "I'm glad you were willing to trust me with that. Reporting a fellow Auror for possible misconduct is never easy.

"Now, we both need to get back to work," he said, moving away again. "Leave this messiness with the Order to me. You just focus on the Death Eaters."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Jen yawned and took one last sip of the coffee she had picked up half an hour before before at a small stand, one of the only places that were still open inside Heathrow Airport at this unconscionable hour, not even bothering to cover her scowl. There was no reason she would be standing around waiting for the arrival of the 2:35 flight from Stuttgart unless it were important. Unfortunately, the Baron's commands were definitely important.

It was actually rather interesting how she knew to be here, or it was if she ignored that it was even more disturbing at the same time. Earlier in the evening, shortly after dinner, she had an idle thought about the airport. It was nothing of any importance, just a momentary musing, but then it popped up in her head again. And again. The fourth or fifth time it did that, she finally realized what it meant: the six weeks of waiting between her previous meeting with Death and the arrival of Tiamat's avatar were over.

Once she understood what it was, the thoughts had become a steady pressure in the back of her head, one that grew ever stronger as the hours passed without her leaving Hogwarts. She had pleaded a headache and headed up to her dorm, but just when she was about to leap out the window and fly beyond the castle's wards, the push became actual pain that stopped only when she stepped away. It was not time for her to leave right then. Instead, she had to wait until the rest of the Ravenclaws had likewise gone to their own beds and the pressure had become all but intolerable before she could approach the window. A quick charm on Luna to make sure her girlfriend did not wake up and ask where she had gone at such an early hour, and she was off.

That had been an hour ago, and her patience was rapidly dwindling down to nothing. It was a good thing for everyone that an aeroplane had touched down and been announced as the flight she was waiting for a few minutes earlier, and now the passengers were streaming out.

Raising her right hand, she looked down at the ring adorning her fourth finger. The ring itself was nothing special, just a tin band and a piece of pretty colored glass, but what was special was the spellwork she had laid upon it. She had no clue if it would work or not, but if she had done it right, the ring would pull her toward a black mage's core. She, wonderfully, was immune from such a spell, and while the spell's range wasn't great – only a few dozen feet – it should still be enough to find the black witch or wizard who was here to hunt down the white wizard.

Without warning, the ring gave her hand a hard yank, and she looked over in that direction.  _Or maybe black witch_ _ **and**_ _wizard_ , she decided. There were two people walking together, and while they were positioned closely enough that they obviously knew and trusted each other, they could not be more different. The man in front, tall and broad-shouldered, had black skin only a shade or two lighter than the business suit he wore. His outfit was better than some of the attempts she had heard about or seen where wizards tried to look like Muggles, but there was no way the creases of his clothes could be that sharp after a long flight without the use of magic. His companion, on the other hand, looked like she was after all the attention she could possibly get: long pink hair on one side of her head was flipped over to cover the side that had almost certainly been shaved, and every centimeter of olive-toned skin that was not obscured by her too-small t-shirt and ripped jeans was instead covered by tattoos depicting birds and beasts of all types, all drawn in a style reminiscent of ancient Greek pottery. Only her face was clear of ink, showing her to be no more than fifteen years older than Jen. To the Muggles, who were not used to magicals' slower rate of aging, she would appear to be a young twenty-something holding on too tightly to the last vestiges of teenage rebellion.

Jen dearly hoped he was the avatar and she was just the spunky protégé.

No reason to delay, though. She quickly walked up behind them and fell into step, close enough to feel the icy magical cores both possessed, and it took only a second for the witch to glare at her and spit out, "Can we help you?"

"Considering you're after the Stormrider, I certainly hope so."

The wizard led them to a nearby column and turned to give her a small, polite smile. "You are the one we were told to expect, then. I must admit, I did not expect to see anyone bearing the Gatekeeper's mark so boldly." There was an accent to his words, but she could not place it. It was too muddled, just a trace of his native speech that had been long ago cast aside.

"I usually don't. This just seemed like the proper occasion," she answered while she raised her hand to touch the choker wrapped around her throat. Normally she kept the accessory turned around with a small pendant hanging off it – if only because it was a Dark Treasure and could not be damaged, which in this case also meant it could not be removed – but for tonight she had spun it so as to reveal the triangle and line and circle decorating the Resurrection Stone. That he would refer to Death by title rather than name was odd, but she supposed there was a reason for it. If nothing else, it would make it more difficult for any eavesdroppers to understand whom they were talking about. "I look forward to working with you. I have never had an opportunity to see the gifts of the Grand Wyrm at work."

"Ah, I am not the Wyrm's servant," he said with a short laugh. "That honor is held by Menagerie. I belong to the Sleeper."

Her eyes widened. Did he mean the Sleeper in the Desert? Not just an avatar of Tiamat, then, but also one of Sutekh's. Three black mages against a single white wizard, and even if none of them possessed black magic that was easily wielded in a fight, their combined skills were certainly broad and esoteric enough to handle whatever Marduk's champion threw at them.

"My name, such as you may know it, is Priest, and as I said, this is Menagerie," he continued. "How should we address you?"

Needing an alias was unexpected, and she went with the first thing to pop into her head. "Call me Queen."

"Queen, huh?" Menagerie repeated with a sneer. "Pretentious little thing, aren't you? We've dealt with brats like you before; I bet you think this is all one big game. Isn't that right?"

A flick of her wrist conjured a screen of silence around them. Priest's eyebrows rose in surprise, though he said nothing about it. "A game? Games are meant to be fun. There's a white wizard running around in my country whose goal is to kill me, and he's skilled enough that the Gatekeeper thought it best to arrange for the two of you to come here and participate in the hunt. Now you can call me crazy if you want, but I don't consider that much fun."

"Good," rumbled Priest before Menagerie could voice another retort. "Taking this seriously is the first step in surviving the battle ahead. I have fought white wizards for nearly thirty years, and even now I do not assume it will be a simple task."

The punk witch scoffed. "You're giving her far too much credit. You ever fought the whites before, Queenie?"

"No. This is a new one for me."

"And you think you can help us? Until you've ripped out a white wizard's heart, felt his blood running down your arms, tasted his flesh, you're just playing at being a black witch. You'd do better to go back home and play tea party with your dolls."

Jen quirked one eyebrow dismissively at the other witch's condescension. She had actually hoped they would be able to get along, if for no other reason than division would make it that much harder to eliminate their mutual enemy, but it seemed like that was a fool's dream. "That had better not be your best attempt to make me squeamish. If it were, I will have to wonder if your skills at killing are any less pathetic than your taunts."

"You've got a mouth on you, but brats with a mouth don't have anything else to fall back on. Leave this to us, and maybe we'll let you know where to go so you can see us take off the head of your big, bad white wizard." Spinning around, Tiamat's avatar stormed away.

Priest, on the other hand, tilted his head in a brief, shallow bow. "I apologize for her behavior. Menagerie does not play well with others until she feels they have proven themselves to her. For now, it is best that we work alone. I will keep you informed on our progress."

"Very well," she said. If the white wizard was as skilled as the Baron had made him out to be, she expected these two would be spinning their wheels for a while, but then again, she did not know how they were at their jobs. Maybe they really were that good, or maybe they'd get lucky. "You can send the letters to Gringotts' Post Service, box 17238. Let me know when you need my help."

"Should that come to pass, I will tell you immediately." He did not sound like he expected that to happen, and with their conversation at a close, he left to catch up with his partner.

Jen let the privacy charm fall and sighed. That could have gone better.

* * *

**If you've read my one-shot "A Lion's Pride" or remember the last chapter of** _**Ascendant** _ **, you already know that I'm actually a fan of Scrimgeour and consider him a bit of an unsung hero. For all that Rowling tried to make him a minor antagonist in book 6 and the first part of book 7, I had a hard time accepting her reasoning for it, probably because the circumstances that make him out to be a 'bad guy' are so vague that it's obvious there was vital information missing or alternative explanations that would be far easier to swallow.**

**I'm not bashing; I'm just examining a canon event from a logical perspective. Also, Danny? Congratulations on killing any chance you had of getting into the Aurors, even if you could pass the Potions NEWT after self-study.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	10. Friends in Strange Places

**Jiggly Joe:**  Harry's protests about Shunpike's arrest were  _never_  about him being killed; as far as we are told, Shunpike was still alive at the end of the series. It's explicitly stated that what Harry was unhappy about was him being arrested and then imprisoned so the Ministry could be seen "doing something", which was the same reason Fudge had Hagrid arrested in book 2. If what Harry was protesting was summary execution, he would have a very valid point, but it wasn't and he didn't. And since the entire series was from Harry's perspective, I can't see that there is any functional difference between "Scrimgeour was an antagonist to Harry's perspective" and "Scrimgeour was an antagonist in the story".

 **naruto** : Yes, Jen has continued to slowly enlarge the amount of magic her body can channel at a time like she did back in Princess of the Blacks. She does that every four or five months, but I just haven't shown it happen after the first time because it would be pointlessly repetitive and serves no narrative purpose.

 **Disclaimer:**  Did Snape's 'redemption arc' have him show any remorse for the people he and the other Death Eaters killed while he was a willing member of the organization? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 10  
** **Friends in Strange Places**

Lily scowled with disgust and threw down the  _Daily Prophet_  that she had been handed. "You're right. They're really going through with it."

His own frown firmly in place, James nodded and picked it up to resume reading. He did not have long before he had to meet with yet another realtor; thanks to the year he spent working at Hogwarts, they had been able to qualify for a loan to purchase a new house, but now it was a matter of finding the right one. They did not want to go through the hassle of contracting out to have a house built for them, but at the rate they were going, that might be what eventually happened. None of the houses for sale right now were up to their standards, met all their requirements, and were in their budget range. While he was off doing that, she would head back down to the potion lab in the Longbottoms' manor that she had all but taken over to continue her brewing, which currently was their only source of income since James's previous plan to join the DMLE as a Patrolman or a Hit Wizard had gone up in smoke as soon as Lestrange cut off his leg.

And even if she had not, Lily reflected, he probably would not want to work for them now, anyway. The article he showed her was another about Stan Shunpike, this time that he was being formally charged with conspiracy to commit murder and acts of terrorism. Arresting the man for something he had not done – Danny in particular was quite vehement on that point – was bad enough, but now the DMLE was blundering on and was actually going to put him on trial for it! And, of course, it was almost assuredly going to be a show trial with a guilty verdict already decided.

Heaven forbid the Ministry admit that it was doing something wrong when it was riding the swell of public support this illegal arrest garnered them.

It was bad enough that the Ministry was behaving like this, but Danny had made no secret of the identity of the Auror whom he and Dumbledore had talked to when they went to the DMLE to straighten this all out. Neither Sirius nor Narcissa Malfoy had even tried to explain away Nymphadora Tonks's accusations when the Order met following that disastrous discussion, but neither had they spoken out against them. They had, in fact, said absolutely nothing regarding the Ministry's recent actions. Word had then been passed around following their departure that Sirius was still working as a Hit Wizard trainer even after being called in to chat with Scrimgeour. It seemed that the Black family had made the choice to side with the Ministry even when it stood in opposition to the Order, and while everyone hoped this war did not become a three-sided fight with the Ministry and the Order fighting themselves at the same time they moved against the Death Eaters, a few of the more hot-headed Order members were already floating out the idea that the Blacks be preemptively barred from further meetings since they clearly could not be trusted.

As if summoned by her thoughts, the door opened to allow Dumbledore to walk in. "Ah, James, Lily. Just who I needed to see. We need to have a quick chat, and a rather uncomfortable one, at that."

"On that note, I believe I will take my leave." Augusta stood and picked up her empty bowl, waving away James's protests that they could find somewhere else to talk. "I have other things I need to do, anyway. Besides, from the look on your face, Albus, I don't think I want to hear what it is you have to say."

"No, you don't. Thank you." He waited until the middle-aged witch had closed the door before he sighed and dropped heavily into an empty chair.

James and Lily glanced worriedly at each other. "So what is it?" he finally asked. "Is something wrong with Danny?"

"No, or if there is, it's nothing I'm aware of. I'm afraid I'm here to talk to you about your other child." Neither Potter had anything to say to that, so he pulled off his half-moon glasses and rubbed his crooked nose for a moment. "While the Ministry may have pulled me from my post in the ICW, I do still have some connections in the international community. I was catching up with one of them yesterday when he mentioned something  _'funny'_  he had heard about last month. Our disgust with and stand against dark magic is well known on the Continent, and as a result some representatives from other nations found it ironically amusing that a British girl should travel to Bulgaria and take their version of the OWLs, specifically the one for the Dark Arts."

"You're sure it was Jenny?" she asked in a weak voice. Jenny had told her at their last – and from the way the girl had ignored her letters following that, possibly final – discussion about how it was only the weak returns that kept her from moving against the populace and trying to take over the country as a Dark Lady. That had shaken her for obvious reasons, but after several weeks of worry and back-and-forth discussions with herself, Lily had almost managed to convince herself that Jen had phrased her statement the way she had purely for the shock value and that there were other reasons she would not really do something like that, lack of ability among them. Now, though, with news that her daughter might be defiling herself with dark magic?

She didn't want to believe it, but it was hard to argue with Dumbledore's certainty.

"Well, she was tested under the name Jennifer Black, so I can only assume so. In case you were wondering, she received top marks," he added in an acid tone. "I'm sure Mrs. Malfoy was quite pleased to hear that."

"But surely Sirius would be upset about this," James cut in, though his voice betrayed his own doubts. "He always hated the Dark Arts. I know Azkaban left him damaged, but he wouldn't let her study dark magic. And then there's Andromeda's daughter. She's an Auror. Wouldn't she be against it, too?"

"Young Nymphadora, I'm afraid, may be lost to the Light. We already know she is a liar and a traitor; in light of that, is it so unlikely that she might not secretly support the Dark? Kingsley has told me that she is currently enjoying the benefits of being a member of the Blacks and supporting the Ministry's new militancy, among them increased standing with Scrimgeour. One does not have to be evil already to start down the road of Darkness. Greed and selfishness will do just fine for that.

"But what Nymphadora or Sirius or Narcissa approve of or don't is irrelevant. We may not like it, but your daughter currently has a not-insignificant amount of sway with the DMLE as a result of fighting Voldemort in Hogsmeade, particularly since she then made it sound like she did so alone, and her friendship with Amelia Bones's niece gives her an additional route directly to the top of the Ministry. She has, at least to my knowledge, not taken advantage of that influence, but I fear it will only be a short time before she does. We cannot allow her to use that influence to hinder our efforts to end this war, by accident or design."

"You want us to discredit our daughter?" Lily asked feebly. On the one hand, it would make any efforts at bringing her back to the Light and her family all but impossible. On the other, if doing so would make this war end faster, could they afford not to?

"If necessary, yes. The worst possible outcome would be for us to vanquish Voldemort only to discover that the Ministry had become even more authoritarian and prejudiced than it is now. But," he added thoughtfully, a hand rising to stroke his long beard, "there might be an alternative to removing her influence. If she could be convinced to use it for good, we could ensure that the Ministry comes out from this war a better institution than it is now. I just do not know how we can reach her at this point," he finished with a sigh.

"She might go by the name Black, but she's a Potter deep down," said James in a far more confident voice than he had used previously. "We just… need to get past her dislike of us personally."

"That won't work." James and Dumbledore turned to look curiously at her. "I… We… I might have convinced her to meet with me a couple of times over the last year."

"That is wonderful, my dear," Dumbledore said with a wide smile. "If you are already making inroads—"

"I'm not. Or I was, maybe, but…" Lily shook her head. "She just walked out the last time we talked. I don't know why, and when I tried to find out, she never answered any of my letters. Even when we were talking, she made it very clear she doesn't think much of us." Pulling her arms close around her, she whispered, "She's Dark. I didn't want to admit it to myself, but she is. She just doesn't care about anyone else, and she's proud of that. She told me that she would support Bones even after I told her that would mean the Ministry killing people, and she laughed at the idea of imprisoning the Death Eaters. I don't know how we could reach her."

Dumbledore slipped out of the chair to kneel at her feet and lay a hand on her knee. "Oh, Lily," he said in a voice thick with sorrow, "I know it seems like an impossible task, but no one is beyond redemption if they truly desire it. It will be a hard, hard road for her, but we can pull your daughter back from the Darkness. We just need to drag her close enough for her to realize how far she has fallen. The question, ever ever, is how."

* * *

"Miss Black, stay behind if you would."

Jen and Susan exchanged confused glances before the redhead shrugged. That period of Potions had been completely unremarkable, just as every period of this class had been now that it contained only the school's top brewers, so she was sure Snape did not want her to stay for any disciplinary reason. Had something happened to her sample from the previous class? But if that were the case, why did he phrase his statement like a request?

She had no idea, and now she was curious.

Susan walked out alongside Padma, the only two members of their group who had both managed to get an O on their OWL and were willing to spend another two years with Snape, while Jen finished packing her belongings. One eyebrow rose delicately when the normally dour professor flicked his wand at the door, causing it to slam closed and erecting an impressive privacy charm upon it. "I need to ask you a… personal favor," he said after a moment's hesitation.

"A personal favor." He nodded, and the corner of her mouth quirked. This situation was just too ripe for humor for her to pass up. "A sixteen-year-old girl alone in a room with an older, mysterious man; the door's locked and charmed so no one can overhear us; and he's asking for a personal favor," she counted off, and her expression bloomed into a wide grin. "I knew I should have worn the lacy underwear today."

Snape gaped at her for a moment before his jaw clacked shut and his head shook back and forth as though to get rid of those mental images. Clearly he did not appreciate her moment of mirth. "Are you quite done with playing the coquette?" he demanded with his teeth clenched.

"If I must."

"That will have to do, I suppose." Taking a breath, the wizard rolled up his left sleeve to display the pitch-black tattoo of a snake coming out of a skull's mouth. "This is what I need help with. Can you get rid of it?"

She blinked and started walking toward him so she could more closely inspect the Dark Mark emblazoned on the underside of his forearm, though most of what she needed to know she could feel with her sonar just fine from where she had been sitting. "Okay, I'll be honest: not what I thought you were going to ask. Partly because I don't know why you're asking me about it."

"The intersection of those I believe can help with this problem and those who would be willing to do it is, unfortunately for me, limited to you. I would not walk away alive if I asked one of the Death Eaters, I have seen not a sign of the Dark Lord over the last few months even if I could ask him to release me from his service, and of the Order, I am the only one who has any detailed, first-hand experience with dark magic. The Aurors only know enough to be able to effectively fight dark wizards, and for all that Dumbledore is nowhere near as lily-white as we once thought him, he abhors the Dark Arts." He glanced away and answered her unasked follow-up question. "I myself have a great deal of expertise in curses and certain poisons, but that will not work on this unless I wished to remove my arm. You, on the other hand, have knowledge of more uncommon aspects of the Dark Arts. Very few— Ow!"

"You wanted this. Quit complaining," she retorted while she continued pulling and prodding at the icy patch of magic behind the image with her hands and her powers. The edges of the spell were wrapped around themselves, which should have given her a good grip, but as his reaction proved, that was not the case here. "Very few what?"

"Fourteen-year-olds can create a working oath with blood magic. Stop!" He tried to jerk his forearm away from her grasp and grunted when she grabbed the center of the spell and stretched. "What are you doing?!"

"Trying to figure out what this is," she answered with a faint huff. "I thought it would be a complex charm of some sort, but it's fighting me more like a ward, which is weird. If it's just experience with other forms of dark magic you needed, you could have Flooed Aunt Cissy, you know. She and Aunt Andi both know more blood magic than I do, at least for the moment."

"I considered going to her, but she is not bound to keep my secrets the way you are."

That did not mesh with his previous answer, but it was still a fair point. The oath he had mentioned was something she had done a couple of years earlier in what she now realized was an instance of her acting out of arrogance more than sense, but thankfully it had not blown up in her face the way it could have. They were both oath-bound to keep secret what the other did not wish for anyone else to know, and that magically created trust was no small part of the reason their relationship was a little bit different from the norm. The knowledge that her favorite aunt had once had designs to ravish his prepubescent body didn't make it any more conventional, at least not on her end.

One more tug, and the bit of magic on his arm flashed momentarily with ice and a too-familiar spark. She let go of his hand with a disappointed sigh. "Well, I have good news, bad news, and worse news."

"Just go ahead and skip to the worse news," he said in a resigned tone of voice.

"You don't get a say in the order. Good news, I do know what this is. Bad news, it's soul magic."

"And soul magic is?"

"A form of black magic." Ah, there was the expected expression of terror. Black magic was, understandably, feared by the average witch and wizard, even those who were otherwise inured to the Dark Arts. Mostly that was because black magic was a mystery to anyone who was not a practitioner and all that was commonly known about it was that it put incredible, impossible things within the realms of reality. "The Dark Lord put a piece of his soul in your flesh to bind you to him for the rest of your life. Worse news? There are only two ways to break a spell like this. First, we could ask him to undo it himself—"

"Because that would ever happen," Snape scoffed.

"Exactly. Second, we have to totally destroy its physical anchor."

"Which still leaves me with only one arm," he pointed out unnecessarily. Obviously grasping for straws, he asked, "The Dark Lord Marks all of his followers. Is it even possible for him to have divided his soul as many times as he would have to do to accomplish that?"

"I think you are greatly overestimating the amount of his soul in the Mark. It really is a tiny piece, relatively speaking, though that does not make getting rid of it any less problematic." Did she really want to continue with the second part of the explanation? It was not something that many people knew, which she personally considered a good thing as otherwise there would be far more of Nyarlathotep's peons running around spreading madness like their patron wanted. "And… If you traumatize a soul by snipping bits of it off, it does regrow. Just slowly, and more importantly, it never comes back… right."

They stood in silence for a moment before she prompted, "How did you get it, anyway?"

"Why do you need to know that?" he demanded, his eyes pointedly not looking in her direction.

"The more I know about the Mark, the better the chances I have of figuring out some way of getting it off of you. I can't destroy it outright, but there might be a loophole we can use to our advantage."

Snape flicked his gaze at her for a second before looking away again. "People who want to become Death Eaters have to have a current member petition the Dark Lord for inclusion, and then they are given a test of some sort. Most often, they have to show that they can torture and murder Muggles or Muggleborns without regret; their chances of being accepted into the ranks are better if they show they enjoy it or if they do something… creative."

"Who did you kill?" she asked in a non-accusing voice.

"Kyle and Rebecca Standland and their son, Michael."

Her eyebrows rose of their own accord. "You knew them personally?"

"No," he muttered. "At the time, they were just three strangers. It was only later that I went looking for their names and what kind of people they were. I did not have the right to remember them only as nameless faces." He turned to stare at her now, his black eyes hard with something emotion that, as soon as he spoke, she identified as self-loathing. "You have to understand, my time as a faithful Death Eater is not part of my life I am proud— No. It is a part of my life that I am actively ashamed of. I could try to excuse myself by claiming I was young and stupid and full of anger and didn't care who I took it out on, but that's all it would be. Excuses. It doesn't change the fact that I murdered three people in cold blood and didn't think a thing was wrong with it."

"So what changed?" she questioned gently. "You believed in their cause once upon a time, but now you're a spy working against them."

"My best friend is a Muggleborn," said Snape softly, "someone I grew up with. I knew her parents and her older sister. Then I found out the Dark Lord planned to kill her. You asked me once why I was a spy for the Order even though I hate doing so; that is why. I went to Dumbledore to beg for his help in keeping her safe, and that was the price he demanded of me." Leaning backward against the front of his desk, he continued, "It was only after that night that I really considered that the people I killed, the people the rest of the Death Eaters killed? They were other people's families, other people's best friends, and we took them away from those people just as she was almost taken away from me." He sighed. "It's hard to mindlessly hate someone when you find you have common ground with them."

They were silent for a moment. "How did he apply the Mark to you?" she finally asked.

He seemed to appreciate the change of subject because he immediately explained in a more normal voice, "The Dark Lord only gives his Mark to one recruit at a time – which, if you're right in that it is a piece of his soul, makes much more sense now. I don't know if we all went through the same thing since none of us were given permission to talk about it, but for me, he smeared a foul-smelling paste on my arm and cast a spell on it. It was reddish brown in color, and he reapplied it every day for a week. The morning after my last 'session', I found the Dark Mark there, and it has never gone away since, not even when we thought he was dead."

A reddish-brown paste. Foul-smelling. She scowled; without more information, there were just too many things that could describe. "You said it smelled bad. How, exactly? Did it smell burned? Sour? Rotten?"

"I don't remember. It's been eighteen years since I smelled it."

Yes, because that was so incredibly helpful. Still, she felt like she should know this. Voldemort had to anchor his soul fragment to something, and he probably would not just do so to the Death Eaters' skin directly since they had their own souls that could fight back against it. Something red and foul that would interact with other magics, strengthen them—

No. Could it be that simple?

"Did it smell like feces?"

"I told you, I…" He trailed off, and his brow wrinkled as he cast his mind back through the years. "Actually, I think it did. Yes, that's it. I think I wondered why at the time, but I never did ask for an explanation."

"It smelled like feces because it was." His expression was disgusted and only grew more so as she continued, "Feces and blood for the color, and most likely bile and phlegm were mixed in as well. The four primary humors for the classical elements, with the magic of the charm to represent the aether. In ritual arithmancy, the number five is associated with manifestation and creation, and the seven repetitions were for permanence. He did not want this coming undone."

"As fascinating as that information is, is there a point to this? You already said you cannot destroy the Mark," he pointed out darkly.

"As a matter of fact, there is." He stared at her, and was that a gleam of hope in his eyes? "You're right, I can't break the Mark while it is on you, but what I can do is manipulate the interface. He used humoral magic to apply the Mark, which means I can use the same thing to move it from you to something else that I  _can_  destroy."

He hesitated for only a moment before he stretched out his arm for her to take once more. "Do it."

Conjuring a small knife in her pocket, she pulled it out and scratched two hagalaz runes on his wrist and in the crook of his elbow, cutting just deep enough to draw blood. Yes, they would scar, but she knew Snape could brew a Scar-Diminishing Potion; he had created a modified version to remove the scarring on her eyes that had left her blind for most of her life. "This won't be immediate; I hope you realize that. I need a day or two to collect enough fluid to work the magic, and then it'll take several more days to apply it," she told him while pulling her index fingers from the bloodied runes to the center of the Mark where the little spark of Voldemort's soul was hiding. Around and around and around her fingers circled, thin streaks of blood trailing behind them, and once she had woven the threads of magic from the runes through the fabric of the spell sufficiently, she anchored the threads back onto their respective runes. "The number six signifies transference, so that's how many humors I will be using. I'll have to apply that mixture eight times; that number is good for purification, and it's also the sum of seven and one. Seven to match the number of times the Dark Lord applied his own humoral mixture to you, and one for union to tie the Dark Mark to whatever object you choose to hold the soul fragment."

"And what humors do you plan to use?"

She looked up to find him staring down at her with a queasy expression. Still, he asked, and she had no reason not to answer. "Blood, bile, and phlegm are traditional, but instead of feces, I think I'll use urine. I'll also need to include a secondary axis to add up to six. Introversion–extraversion would probably be the easiest, which means it will also contain tears and vaginal secretions."

"Do we have to?" he asked in voice that was definitely a whine. "I appreciate the effort, but couldn't you find something else? I really do not want to have urine and… your stuff from… down there on me."

"I'm the one who has to collect them. Trust me, if there were any other option, I would take it, but we have to counter humors with humors. Earth is intimately linked to the act of excretion, and I don't like the idea of playing with shit any more than you do. Urine, at least, is relatively clean." Snape did not seem relieved by that fact. "As for the secretions, extraversion is connected with reproduction in the same way earth and excretion are. I'd offer semen, but the fluids all need to come from the same source, and that is one substance I just can't produce. I don't want to use yours in case there is contamination of some sort from the Mark, and I very much doubt you want me to call in a third person for this."

"No, but that doesn't mean I like it. This is all revolting."

"We're working with bodily fluids. It should go without saying that things are going to get gross." Plucking the strings of magic coming from the runes to check that they were stable, she gave them both a hard yank to tighten the magic around the Mark. She needed to make sure she had 'lifted' the soul piece out of Snape's arm enough that the magic she was going to use would be able to flow underneath it. Snape, unaware of just what she was doing, grunted at the sudden stab of pain. "Admittedly, you do have a choice for reproductive fluids since I'm a girl, but the other option is menstrual blood, which has its own problems. For one, I'm not on the rag right now, so we'd have to wait a couple of weeks to do this, and for two, if we used blood for extraversion, we couldn't use it for air, and I refuse to go with the alternative for that element."

Very hesitantly, he asked, "Which would be?"

"Spinal fluid."

"Ah. I understand your reluctance, then." A beat passed, and then he said, "Thank you for the information, but I think I've changed my mind. I've had the Dark Mark on my arm for almost two decades now, and while the Dark Lord was gone, I didn't have a single problem with it. Perhaps I'll just keep it, after all."

A mirthless smile slid onto her face. "That would be a terrible idea."

"Why?"

"You didn't have any problems with it because he was turned into a spirit, but he wasn't dead. Once he really dies – and he will, have no fear about that – there's no way to predict just how the Mark will react. It might turn quiescent again; it might even fade away entirely. On the other hand, it's possible – even likely – that this bit of soul has wrapped itself into your magic and will rip it all away when he's gone, turning you and all the rest of the Death Eaters into Squibs. Or it might just kill you outright." She shrugged. "There's really no way to tell. But since you took it voluntarily, I doubt the outcome would be a good one."

Snape looked at her, then at the Mark on his arm, then back at her. Finally, he said in a voice of utmost resignation, "You know more about this than I do. Much as I don't want to, I'll… trust your judgement on this."

* * *

The bag dangling from Ginny's shoulder lurched unexpectedly, and she scrabbled to grab it. She managed to catch the far end of the strap, but the bag just kept falling to smash against the stone floor. The redhead eyed the frayed end of the strap with an unhappy eye. This was the problem with second-hand satchels: they were always tearing and falling apart at the worst possible time. Wincing at the thought of what might have been damaged in the fall, she pulled the mouth of the bag open and peered inside.

And yes, of course her bottle of ink had to be the one thing broken. Ginny sighed and twirled her wand, siphoning up the spilled ink. She could  _Reparo_  the bottle just like she could the bag, but the ink itself was a loss. Maybe Marissa would be willing to loan her a spare bottle; she had not borrowed anything from the Muggleborn girl in a while. She made sure that when she needed to ask for help from her roommates, she went through them in order so as to burden any one of them as little as she could and in the process come across a little less as a freeloader, but giving away a bottle of ink was a minor inconvenience, and the other girls knew she would repay them for the stuff they gave her if she could and if they would let her. To her simultaneous relief and shame, the the latter had happened less and less often as they realized the depths of her family's poverty.

Of course, it ate at her to need to borrow anything from her roommates at all, but what could she do? Her father did not make much money, and after losing Bill at the end of last year, she had discovered that he and her dad had an arrangement where her oldest brother would transfer portions of his paycheck to the family's account and her dad would say nothing about it to anyone else. Fred and George had planned on making tons of money once they opened their joke shop, but without the kind of capital they needed to build up their stock, that windfall was just a dream, and that was probably all it would ever be. Percy still wanted nothing to do with them, Charlie barely made enough at the dragon preserve to maintain his own meager lifestyle, and that was all the breadwinners in the family.

Her books and rolls of parchment clean and ink-free once more, she looked up to see that the rest of the class had just kept on walking without her. She huffed and magicked the bag back together. Okay, she didn't blame them for wanting to get out of the dungeons as quickly as they could after yet another disastrous class with Snape, but not one of them had been willing to help her out or even ask what was wrong? Ugh! She barely resisted the urge to stamp one foot. It was like they had all completely ignored her—

"Need some help?"

"Not anymore. Thanks, though…" She turned around to face the speaker, and immediately her expression devolved into a scowl. "What do you want, Malfoy?"

"I did just offer to help. That should answer your question," he said, leaning against the cold wall. The white-blond boy pursed his lips. "I think you might need more help than just with your bag, though."

She glared at him. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't care. There's nothing you can offer to 'help' me with that I want." Pulling the repaired bag back onto her shoulder, she whirled around and stomped away.

"Are you sure about that?" he called out. "I mean, Potter only has eyes for Cho Chang. Unless you really don't want him?"

Ginny stopped in her tracks. Whatever she might have expected him to say, that was definitely not it. She also could not help her heart from thudding loudly and unhappily at that reminder. She had noticed Danny's fancy for the Chinese Seeker the previous year, and she had hoped it would crash and burn like so many crushes did. That, however, had not happened. Getting him to notice her was already going to be an uphill battle because he thought of her as his best mate's little sister, and having to compete against an admittedly attractive witch like Chang was only going to make her goal that much more difficult to achieve.

Her issues with Chang, however, did not explain why Malfoy was bringing up her and Danny. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't. Look, Weasley, I hate to break it to you, but your thing for Potter is obvious to anyone who has eyes." Shoes scraped against the floor, and Malfoy slipped into view. He was keeping his distance, though, which was the only reason she wasn't whipping out her wand and hexing him right here and now. Well, the only reason she felt comfortable thinking about, anyway. "You keep beating your head against the wall waiting for him to notice you, but you're ignoring the fact that that's not going to work. You need to start playing the game sooner rather than later, or you're going to lose before you have a chance."

"I'm still waiting for you to make some sense," she bit out. Malfoy sounded like he was working his way up to something, but for the life of her she could not figure out what it was. Not that she should even be listening to him, she told herself sternly. The Malfoys had been held up as the epitome of everything a wizard or witch should  _not_  be all her life, and from listening in to Ron's complaints about Draco Malfoy, she already knew nothing he was going to say would benefit her. So why was she still listening?!

No, she knew why. It was because he had mentioned the exact problem she could find no answer for. If he really, honestly was trying to help – and that was a huge if – he might have noticed something that she was missing. Then there was just the question of why in the world did he care? He could just be planning to make fun of her; he had never done that to her since he was always too busy insulting Ron and Danny, but it was definitely something someone like him would do.

She frowned as she thought more about that. This seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go through for a quick laugh, and if that was all he was after, why was he doing it when it was just the two of them here? Wouldn't he want an audience for that?

"All right," he said, unaware of the debate raging inside her head. "I'll give you the short version. You can love Potter all you want, but if that's all you have, any hopes of getting together with him are doomed. You two are playing by different sets of rules."

"What do you mean, different rules?" she hesitantly asked.

He flashed her a smile that was more of a smirk. "For all that they don't call attention to it, the Potters are nobility, and there are certain… let's call them 'expectations', that apply to Noble Houses. They need to maintain their social standing, and when they go out courting, they need to think about what their partner can bring to the table in terms of finances and connections with other Houses. Your family isn't nobility, so you don't think about those kinds of things, but if you want to land him, you need to start playing along with his expectations."

"Maybe that's how your family does things," she spat, "but the Potters aren't like that! They wouldn't pick who to date because of stuff like how much money would be involved or how pure the other person's blood is." The very idea was ludicrous! After all, Mrs. Potter was a Muggleborn, and she had hinted that her family didn't have a lot of money when she was growing up. If Malfoy were telling the truth, Mr. Potter would not have given her the time of day. No, this sounded more like the sad, selfish, underhanded way slimy snakes like the Malfoys would go about love and relationships.

"Aren't they?" Malfoy swept his hand over his slicked-back hair. "Look at the Lady Potter. Sure, she might be a Muggleborn and so doesn't have any worthwhile connections, but do you think it's just a coincidence that when Lord Potter – the latest in a long-unbroken line of Purebloods – started dating a Muggleborn, it was also someone who was considered the brightest witch of her generation and was believed to have a fantastic future waiting for her after Hogwarts? That certainly sounds like a secondary motive to me. And while the Changs are newcomers to Britain, they're also  _rich_  newcomers, and from what I've heard, that family is a big deal back in Hong Kong.

"But even if he isn't thinking about it all the time and intentionally picking who he's interested in based on their family, that doesn't mean thoughts like that aren't going around on in the back of his mind. Courting is something that even the Light Houses at least pay lip service to, and eventually that's almost certainly how he's going to find his wife."

"You don't know that," she retorted. Inside, though, she had to wonder. Malfoy's comments about Mr. and Mrs. Potter sounded right and matched some things they themselves had told her, and she had noticed that Chang always wore fancy clothes. It was something she had lamented more than once in private. Could he be right about what Danny was thinking, too?

"Maybe I don't. But do you really want to risk it?"

"I still don't know what you want or what you're offering," Ginny said, shoving her doubts away where they couldn't hurt her.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "That's because you keep interrupting me. You don't realize it, but courting is an incredibly expensive process. The amount of resources it takes is staggering. Now, normally it's the guys spending that money on the girls, but for a girl to chase after the guys she likes isn't unheard of. Unconventional, to be sure, but there is some precedent, and I've heard Bulstrode's family is doing that right now. Unfortunately for you, that means you're the one who will need to have that money. If nothing else, you'll need to update your wardrobe. It's hard to make people think you're a good catch if you don't look like one."

"Except Danny doesn't care about stuff like that! He's been friends with Ron for years—"

"And he doesn't want to date your brother, either, does he?" Malfoy cut in. "Just because he's friends with people who don't have the kind of money he does doesn't mean he'll be interested in dating or marrying someone from such a different background."

"So this was all just to laugh at me for being poor, was it?" she exploded, her grip on her wand tightening until it was almost painful. She did not want to listen to any more of his drivel. She should have kept walking like she had thought to do at first.

Malfoy just crossed his arms and stared her down. "Do I look like I'm laughing?"

That brought her thoughts up short. No, he wasn't. He… actually had a fairly serious expression on his face. But if this wasn't a cruel joke, that meant he actually believed what he had been saying, and that wasn't right, either!

"My offer to help is a serious one. You don't have the means to court Potter, nor to make yourself look good enough that he chases after you. I, on the other hand, do have those means. If you want to stand a chance to get him—"

"If the next words out of your mouth are  _'I'll give you the money I just said you need'_ , I'm going to hex you until you can't walk," she snapped. It did not matter how right or wrong he might be; there was no way she was going to accept charity from a Malfoy of all people! "I don't want your 'help', Malfoy. Not with this, not with anything. Don't ever talk to me about anything like this again."

He just kept smirking at her, and after a moment he pushed off from the wall. "That's what you say now, but if you keep your eyes open, you'll see that I'm right. Let me know when you change your mind." Walking back down the hallway, he turned around again. "Oh, but fair warning. My patience is limited. Don't take too long thinking it over."

After a minute, it was just her, standing alone in the cold corridor. Her eyes itched, and she hastily brushed away a couple of tears she had not realized were threatening to drip down her cheeks. She was going to be late for History, she decided, and she hitched her bag back up. She needed to run if she wanted to get there in time, and if she ran, she didn't have to think about any of this.

She just needed a day or two. Enough time that she could forget about this terrible conversation. Or at least enough time that she could prove Malfoy wrong.

* * *

"This has been a week I never want to relive," Snape muttered when she shut the door to his office behind her.

Jen just rolled her eyes. He had been doing so well, too; it only took one day for him to push himself past the unsavory details of the magic she was working, probably because having bodily fluids spread over his skin was not that different from getting filthy while rendering down an animal for parts, something he had mentioned he had to do during his Mastery training. Besides, she was the one who had to produce and harvest these fluids, so if she were not complaining, he had no right to, either. "It's a good thing we're almost done, then, isn't it?" she asked in an overly sweet tone.

"I just hope you do know what you're doing and this hasn't all been for nothing," he countered. "Shouldn't I have felt or seen some sign that it was working by now?"

"Not all magic is as flashy as the curses you love so much. Sometimes it is subtle, mysterious. And since we're working at the very edge of black magic, I'm more than happy with staying unimpressive," she added in a foreboding tone. A rustle through her satchel, and she pulled out the jar she had taken from her house in Wales to hold the mix of humors and the much-disgraced brush she had been using to apply the concoction to his forearm for the last week. "If it got too spectacular, I'd be afraid things were about to go very wrong. Did you find something for me to move the Mark onto?"

He reached in his right-hand pocket and pulled out a small bronze amulet.

"Okay. A little fancier than I would have picked out when it's just going to be destroyed, but to each his own, I suppose."

"Actually, about that." Snape hesitated for a moment before voicing his question. "Once the Mark is transferred, will it still work? Will it still signal when the Dark Lord has summoned us and lead me to him?"

"Probably? I mean, we're using a similar interface, and the magic of the Mark itself will be unchanged, so there's a good chance it would…" She trailed off as she realized why he was asking. "You're going to remain the Order's spy even after the Mark's off, aren't you?"

He looked away briefly before meeting her eyes with his own. "My reason for working with the Order is unchanged. It will be nice to have the option to quit, but for now, I think it is for the best that I soldier on. We have no one else in the Death Eaters' ranks, and we need the information I can bring back."

"Well, you're a grown man. Arm." He obediently stretched out his limb so she could roll up his sleeve. "If you want to keep risking your life in your quest for atonement, who am I to stop you? I will be quite put out if I hear you made me go through all this work just to die on me, though, so watch yourself around them."

"I will endeavor not to disappoint."

She worked in silence for a minute, just brushing her fluids over the Mark. She knew why he had his doubts about whether she was doing any good. This kind of magic needed no words, no fancy motions, no colored lights or eerie noises; all it needed were the humors themselves and the intent, the purpose, that she put in every stroke of the brush. Humoral magic might be considered Dark from a legal perspective, but as someone who could feel the distinction between light, neutral, and dark magics, she knew it was not dark in reality. It was just raw and primal, the kind of magic that unnerved people who liked to trumpet about the innate superiority of wizardry and wand-work, and that more than anything was the reason she expected its use was restricted.

After several minutes, Snape spoke again. "May I ask a personal question, Miss Black?"

"I've been smearing my blood and vomit on your arm for the last week. I think we can do away with the  _'Miss Black'_ s, and I doubt whatever it is you plan to ask is going to be more personal than this already is."

"Very well. When I told you about what I had done as a Death Eater, you barely reacted. Most people your age, and even those decades older, would have changed their opinions of me or at a minimum said something about it."

"And you're wondering why I didn't." He nodded. "There are a couple of reasons. First, remember who my mother is. She's probably killed more people in one night than you did over your entire career as a Death Eater."

Hesitantly he agreed, "That is likely to be an accurate assumption."

"I know; that's why I said it. Second, the Blacks have allegedly murdered our enemies and political opponents in the dark of the night for centuries. I really don't have room to throw any stones."

"What your family did in the past is not the same as what you yourself have done," he pointed out. "Your Head of House spent his entire time when he was a student here acting out against your family's legacy to prove that very point."

Jen's eyebrows rose in surprise. She was well aware of the grudges and bad blood that existed between Snape and Sirius, and yet that comment was rather neutral in tone. Would wonders never cease? "Are you saying you don't think I've killed before? The spirits of the Muggles and werewolves I cut down in Hogsmeade will be so ashamed to know they've been hating the wrong person all these months."

"There is a difference between killing in defense of yourself or others and murdering the innocent because you enjoy it."

 _And where does murdering the innocent in exchange for blessings from Death fall in there?_ , she wondered. Curious about how he would react, she shrugged. "And if you straddle that line? If someone killed in defense of others but still enjoyed the spray of blood and the tear of flesh when she butchered those who intended her harm?"

"Then I would recommend that person be very careful in the future lest she fall over the edge and truly become her mother's daughter."

Application of the humors complete, she waited a moment before looking up at the concerned expression she had already felt him giving her. "We are who we are," she finally murmured. "In my case, it means bloodlust and madness run thick through my veins. I've come to terms with that. Medallion."

He held it out for her, but once she had it, he refused to let go. "If it is any consolation, I do not think your mother would have volunteered to help someone like you have for me. She liked causing pain too much to try her hand at taking it away." Finally, he released the pendant into her grasp.

Jen gave him a weak smile that faded as soon as she turned away. Would he offer those same words of comfort if he knew the kinds of things she had done in her role as Baron Samedi's avatar? She doubted it. "You wanted impressive? This is where things should get a little more visible. It's also by far the most dangerous part of what we're doing, so be prepared to run if things take a turn for the worse."

Dropping the medallion into the jar, she shook it to coat the bronze with the last of the fluids contained within. She pulled it out and laid it on the desk, the wet metal dripping lazily, and then she reached for the runes she had previously etched in Snape's skin. Every night, after she followed him down to his office following dinner, she had slowly tightened the threads of energy that lifted the Mark away from his own magic. Now she removed the threads from the runes entirely and pulled them taught, smiling faintly when she felt the last tendrils of Voldemort's magic be ripped out of Snape's arm and then saw the ink of the tattoo spray upward in a gush of smoke and shadow. Before her enemy's essence could creep up her threads and latch onto her, she carried the writhing cloud to the medallion and slammed her hands on either side of the medal. Held between her hands as it was, the soul fragment landed squarely on the bronze and after only a moment's hesitation coalesced into a thin layer of black patina on the surface, the discoloration taking the shape of a skull.

She let out the breath she had not realized she was holding when she felt the magic of the Mark settle down into its new home, and then she pushed away the doubts that were bubbling up. She had  _probably_ not created a new soul jar for Voldemort; if the Marks contained enough of his soul, either individually or together, to hold him to this world, she was sure the Baron would have mentioned that she needed to slaughter her way through the Death Eaters' ranks as well as destroy the soul jars proper. If she were wrong about that? Well, she had a feeling her patron Power would let her know sooner or later. She just had to make sure she survived the experience.

"And that's that." Hooking her finger through the chain, she lifted the medallion off the desk. "You should probably wash it off, preferably with lots of soap and hot water, before you start wearing it, but otherwise, it's ready to go. …Should I give you two a minute alone?"

Snape reluctantly pulled his eyes from where they had been fixated on his newly unblemished forearm. "Ah. No, no, I'm fine. It's just…" He shook his head in wonder, his eyes drifting once or twice toward his arm again. "I always assumed I would bear his Mark for the rest of my life. To have it gone, completely and forever? To be free? I can't tell you how amazing this is. Thank you, Miss Black. Truly."

"You're welcome."

* * *

**This chapter got a little farther afield than I really wanted. Thankfully, it works with the overall theme and plot/subplots of this story, so I can't complain too much. You can blame Lily's scene on all the people who wanted Dumbledore to find out that Jen had taken the Dark Arts exam, and I guess you can blame me for Malfoy not knowing how to make a coherent sales pitch.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	11. Helpful Advice

**Bit of a boring chapter, but set-up almost always is. In other news, weasel AKA boundedsumo has posted the first chapter of a semi-crossover between this series and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.; I say semi because it's actually an AU of this story. I know nothing about the other franchise, but if that sounds interesting to you, go ahead and check it out.**

**Also, I couldn't think of a good disclaimer for this chapter. Sorry to disappoint.**

* * *

**Chapter 11  
** **Helpful Advice**

"You're up early for a Thursday, aren't you? We don't have any classes first period."

Jen shrugged and took another bite of the apple in her hand, the other occupied with the thick tome she was reading. Tracey sat down opposite her and cast an inquisitive eye over the spine, though it would do the Slytherin no good; she had vanished the silver leaf and reshaped the embossing on the leather specifically so no one would be able to tell what kind of text this was. When her best friend's curiosity still had not abated, she explained succinctly, "Had some reading to do and didn't want to be disturbed in the common room."

' _Didn't want to be disturbed'_  was a bit on an understatement, to be honest. What she held in her hands was an introductory text on Evocation, the discipline she had decided would be her second area of study for her Dark Arts Proficiency exam, and the more she read from the book, the happier she had chosen this to learn. Evocation was undoubtedly one of the most impressive branches of magic she had ever heard of, and she already knew what kinds of things a master of Evocation could accomplish, such as calling one of the Powers to the mortal plane, which the youngest Peverell brother had done when he summoned Death. Unfortunately for her, since it was a Dark Art and – if the previous example was any indication – might legitimately be dark magic, it was not something she wanted random people seeing her reading about. She kept a spell on the book that should prevent anyone besides her from being able to open it, but waking up early to read when everyone else was still asleep was a minor precaution that could yield her large benefits.

That precaution also meant that no one had been around to hear her mutters of frustration. Evocation was a powerful art, but it was also a complicated and dangerous one. A wide variety of enticements and bindings were involved, especially for novices like her, and of all the fields she could have chosen to pursue, it just had to be the one that required a thorough grounding in astrology, a subject she had never spent any time learning. Sadly, the positions of the heavenly bodies were what formed the majority of the protections she would need from the very creatures and entities she called up, and that meant she needed to start studying.

She was just thankful this particular text included a brief introduction and a list of recommended sources for more in-depth research, several of which she had ordered that very morning from Flourish and Blotts, the form secure in Loki's talons.

And speaking of the post, a barn owl was winging its way to her with its own letter. Once it landed on the table, she relieved it of its burden and tore open the envelope. She immediately choked on her laughter.

"What in the world are you reading?" Tracey asked, a small smile growing on her own face at Jen's continued mirth.

"It's a love letter from an 'anonymous' admirer."

"O… kay?" the young Lady replied with no little confusion. "And that's funny why?"

"Well, it starts out with  _'My beloved beauty, for whom I pine away'_  and just gets sappier from there." She nodded at Tracey's laugh. "Let's see… Ah,  _'My heart was yours the first time I saw your eyes glittering at me from across the ballroom'_.  _'Your presence is a light that puts the sun and moon to shame'_. Or maybe this one:  _'On that night, I knew we were destined to spend our lives together'_. The entire letter's like that, each trite little phrase even more insipid than the last. It would be pitiful if it weren't such a joke," she concluded with a shake of her head.

Tracey frowned slightly. "Don't be so sure it's a joke. Some people might actually think sending a letter like this is an honest way to get your attention."

"No, it's definitely a joke. I'm sure of that because even without a signature, I know who sent it." It was a single line that revealed that information, specifically the one that read  _'… every night that I spent with you in my arms …'_. There was only one wizard who could claim that she had slept with him multiple times.

Jen rolled her eyes, still smiling gently. She did not know why Viktor would send her a letter like this, one so different from the others they had shared previously, but her best guess was that he meant for it to make her laugh. If that was the case, he had succeeded admirably, and she would have to thank him for it.

"Oh," the Slytherin said in comprehension, "that makes more sense. You still might want to hide it before your girlfriend catches you with it, though. I don't think she'd take it well."

"No kidding," she muttered. A quick shift of her arm shoved the sheet of parchment under the table where she could banish it into her satchel.

She was just in time. Not a second later, her sonar caught the aforementioned girl coming down the main staircase.

"Good morning, you two," Luna said once she had seated herself at the Ravenclaw table. "Jen, I was wondering if you could help me with something."

The dark-haired girl grimaced, recalling the disgusting substances she had needed to harvest the last time someone asked her for a favor. "I suppose I could. It depends on what it is you want me to do."

"Nothing too bad. I just wondered if you could…" The blonde's voice trailed off into a mumble, and a blush painted her cheeks bright red.

"I didn't catch that. You want me to what?"

Luna sighed. "Just… Look over at Ginny."

There was only one person she could think of who both was known to Luna and would answer to that name, and she focused her eyes as well as her sonar on the littlest Weasley. The Gryffindor sat slightly apart from the rest of her year-mates, though the gap was less a physical one and more one of posture and behavior. The young redhead seemed wrapped up in her own affairs, talking little to anyone else; to make matters more interesting, the Lions sitting nearby were sending the girl confused and worried glances, so this attitude was apparently a new one.

Jen returned her gaze to Luna and raised one eyebrow. "I didn't realize you had been keeping such close tabs on your neighbor."

"I wasn't keeping tabs on her. I just… We used to be friends," Luna explained weakly, "and if I notice an old friend's Melanchist growing at an unnatural rate, I'm allowed to worry about them."

Melanchist. She knew Luna had talked about that creature, but try as she might, she could not recall what it represented. "Okay. And what is it you want from me?"

"She's also spending a lot of time staring at Danny Potter?"

That by itself was no great surprise. She still remembered the short jaunt through Weasley's head she had taken almost two years previously during the Yule Ball, as well as the unusual structure of the psyche. Someone, she still did not know who, had gone through the girl's mind and damaged large sections of it during his or her plundering; the damage was already in the process of healing when she studied it, and two more years should have done even more good. In some ways, however, Weasley was already broken: during what Jen could only assume was the immediate aftermath of the attack, Weasley had used the memory of Potter rescuing her as the anchor upon which to rebuild her fractured mind. It was really only to be expected that she would go on to develop an incredible crush – some might, not unreasonably, call it an obsession – for her savior.

That said, there were some things one just did not do. "You're seriously asking me to set your former friend up with my half-brother?"

"…Maybe?" Tracey joined her in giving the blonde a doubtful look, and Luna looked away with a sigh. "I know it would be awkward—"

"That's assuming she even wants to talk to me."

"—and yes, you might not get anywhere with her. But I'd still like you to talk to her. She was my only friend before Hogwarts," the younger girl explained, "and even though we've grown apart, I'd still like to help her. It's the right thing to do."

Jen sighed as well before asking the obvious question. "Why do you want me to talk to her? Wouldn't someone else, someone who doesn't have such a foul history with her brother, be a better choice?" Reading Luna's expressions was normally the farthest thing from a challenge there was, and today was no exception. What would she be feeling guilty about? "Unless this is a ploy to try to patch things up between your first friend and your girlfriend," she guessed.

Luna's hanging head was all the answer she needed.

_This is just asking for trouble. There is no way it will work, and I expect she knows it, even if she doesn't want to admit it. It won't be my fault when it ends in tears, and I refuse to take the blame for things that aren't my fault. Or for many things that are my fault, to be honest._

_Then again_ , she thought,  _I suppose I could give it a try. If Weasley rebuffs me like I expect she will, the matter is over and done with; nothing lost except for a few minutes of my time. If she does listen, though, there is some fun that I could have with the situation._  A sharp smile found its way onto her face.  _And if Potter is busy dealing with his stalker or his newfound girlfriend, however the matter turns out, that's less time he has to bother me. Luna's happy, Weasley's happy, I'm happy. Everybody wins._

"Fine." Her girlfriend's eyes shot up to meet hers, and she raised her hand to forestall any comments. "I will give it a chance. If she says no, however, that's the end of it."

"That's fine. I don't expect you to work any miracles. Just make an honest effort," the blonde replied happily.

* * *

An opportunity to speak with the female Weasley came sooner than Jen expected or wanted. After her third-period Transfiguration class the next day, she retreated to the library to finish the homework she had been given for the week so she could have the weekend for her  _extracurricular_  studies. What she found when she got there was Ginny Weasley sitting off by herself in a corner, her nose buried in an extraordinarily thick tome.

Now the only question was what to do about this. She could go ahead and get this discussion over with now, or she could put if off until some later date. The former meant a likely pointless irritant, but the latter meant Luna would continue to pester her in that kicked-puppy way she had. Decisions, decisions.

A flick of her fingers as she walked closer ensured they would not be disturbed. "Personally, I've always found it helps to keep your head a little farther away from the page than that."

Weasley's eyes popped up to stare at her, though it took them a second before they hardened with dislike. "What do you want?" she demanded in a cute little growl. A puppy pretending to be a pit bull.

Oh, yes. This situation had all sorts of entertainment possibilities.

Still, she needed to satisfy Luna's request before she started making herself a new toy. "Hard as it may be to believe, I'm here to offer you some help."

"Help?" The redhead's hastily stifled laughter caught Jen off-guard. "Yeah, thanks but no thanks. The last thing I need right now is more 'help'."

"Okay."

She turned around and started walking away, and Weasley stared at her back for a second or two before asking, " _'Okay_ '? That's it? No  _'No, you really do need my help'_  or anything?"

"No, nothing else." Jen came to a halt and shrugged, not turning around to face the younger girl while she thought about her next step. Lying would be easier, but if she was going to try to guide the girl behind her, it went against her nature to make only a half-hearted effort. Full disclosure would give her a better chance of succeeding, and it was not as if the truth in this instance was damning in any way. "If you don't want my help, that's fine by me. I'll tell Luna I gave it a shot and it didn't work, and that will be the end of it."

"What… What does Luna have to do with this?"

"She's the one who asked me to help you. Apparently, she thinks I could give you useful advice regarding your whole…" She waved one hand in the air vaguely. "…Potter situation."

If Weasley's eyes were wide before, it was nothing compared to their size now. They darted to the book in her hands and then back to Jen, and they repeated that a few times. "Is it that obvious?" she finally whispered.

Spinning around on her heel, Jen's head bobbed up and down as she thought over all she had seen of the love-struck Lion's behavior. All things considered, it was a quicker acquiescence than she was expecting, but she was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Pretty much. Not enough that everyone knows all the details, I'm sure, but if anyone spent the time watching you, they should be able to put all the basic facts together without too much trouble."

"Oh." Those doe-brown eyes fell away; after another moment, Weasley closed the thick book and set it face-down on the table. "If I do listen to your advice, what proof do I have that you won't make me look like a fool for your own amusement?"

"Better question: what reason would I have to trick you in the first place?" she asked, propping her hand on her hip. "It isn't like I thought to myself,  _'How about I go out of my way to make a fifth-year look bad today?'_  If it weren't for Luna all but begging me to do this, I wouldn't be here talking to you. I have other things I could be doing with my time. Since she did, though, I'm honestly here to help you."

Weasley looked at her silently for several seconds before sighing and closing the heavy book. "What kind of help can you even offer, anyway? It isn't like you and Danny are close or anything."

"No, we're not. That doesn't mean I don't have useful advice. Regardless of what you may think, Potter is just like every other boy. The same tricks will work on him that work on everybody else." Jen pulled out a chair and seated herself in it. "Or, if nothing else, I can at least answer whatever questions you might have. It's really all up to you."

A quiet settled over them for nearly a minute, the redhead busy with her thoughts and Jen's own mind bouncing back and forth between impatience at waiting for Weasley to get her thoughts together and anticipation for what she could convince Luna to do in compensation later that night. Finally, Weasley sighed. "I don't know what to do about it. I lo— care for Danny a lot, but I don't know if we're right for each other."

Jen rolled her eyes. "So?"

"What do you mean,  _'so_ '?!"

"Exactly that." One of her eyebrows rose at Weasley's continued confusion. "Whether you think you two are 'right' or 'good' for the other is irrelevant. Do you want Potter to be yours?"

"Of course I do, but—"

"Then reach out and  _take him_ ," she declared in a commanding voice. "If you're waiting for him to come to you or for whatever issue you see between you to resolve on its own, you'll still be waiting for him on your deathbed." Barking out a single laugh, Jen leaned back into her chair. "You can worry about incompatibility or whatever when it actually starts posing a problem, but all you're doing by focusing on it now is throwing away your chance to get what you want."

It was how she started this relationship with Luna, after all. If she had spent time worrying about how the differences between them – their social statuses, her own unconventional childhood, Luna's innocence versus her amorality, her black magic as opposed to Luna's tendency to light – they never would have gotten together in the first place. That was not what she did, though; she wanted Luna as hers, and while the road had been a little rocky in places, it had ended in her favor.

"I guess," Weasley said weakly. "Except… I…" She twirled a few locks of hair around one finger for a moment before she blurted out, "Is it going to cause a problem that he has money and we… don't?"

Ah. Now things started making more sense. Luna could be defensive from time to time about how little her father's magazine made them compared to the Blacks' wealth or the Boneses' or… well, all of their mutual friends, really, and the blonde was quite likely the most easy-going individuals Jen knew. If the main reason behind Weasley's indecision was the gulf between her family's and the Potters' finances, it would help explain why the redhead was so willing to accept her advice. It was also, unfortunately, not a problem with an easy solution.

Jen nodded. "It's definitely a possibility. I know Luna sometimes feels awkward about that. I take care not to rub my family's gold in her face, but that doesn't mean it never comes up." And whether Potter would take the same degree of caution or not, she honestly could not say. She intentionally did not know the boy well enough to make any prediction.

"Better clothes, nice jewelry… Would they make it easier to get Danny to pay attention to me?" asked Weasley in a cautious voice.

"Looking nice always works better to grab a guy's attention. A girl's, too, in case you swing that way."

The Gryffindor nodded slowly, her eyes revealing her mind to be elsewhere for a long moment. "If you were in my shoes," she began, "and you found a way you could get the money you needed for all this, would you take it?"

Her own mind drifted away into her memories. The cosmetics and wide variety of outfits she had worn while working at Candyland so she could accommodate the different tastes and kinks of her many clients. The rich outfits and elaborate accessories she had shown off during the dates with her suitors. She shook her head and pulled herself back to the present. "Absolutely."

"Even… Even if you knew it might cause some problems with your family? Hypothetically?" Weasley quickly added, her voice nearly a squeak.

A small smile slid over her lips. "If you're talking about something… shady, shall we say?… I would recommend you take care to keep anyone from finding out. If it's fine other than your family not liking it, though"—she shrugged again—"you have to decide which you think is more important: conforming to the opinions of the members of your family or getting what you want. That's a choice only you can make."

"I think I understand," whispered the girl. Brown eyes rose to meet purple before she looked away again. "Thank you for the advice. I… I need to go now."

"Of course. This is something you need to think over, not make a hasty decision about. Be a Ravenclaw for a while rather than a Gryffindor," she laughed. Weasley did not seem to notice the joke, because the girl just walked away without a single glance back.

 _I'm actually glad I agreed to Luna's request_ , she thought after a moment as another, colder smile appeared.  _And such strange questions, too. I should have taken a moment to find out just what was going on in her head. Wasted opportunity_.

Still, she could assuage her curiosity to some degree. Flipping over the heavy book the other girl had been looking through, her brows knit together as she took in the words embossed on the spine.  _Trees of Gold: A Compendium of the Genealogy of the Noble Houses of Great Britain, 1850–1950_? She glanced back at the departing Lion in suspicion; this was a very interesting choice of reading material for a low-born 'blood traitor'.

What was Weasley up to?

* * *

Griselda glanced up at the knock on her door. She was not expecting anyone at the moment, but between her promise to be available to the grieving children and the exasperation at the budget in front of her, any visitor would be a welcome one. "Come in."

The door swung open, and she was surprised when it was not a younger child but the Head Boy and Girl who poked their heads in. "Headmistress," the young man said in a tentative voice, "can we talk to you for a moment?"

"Of course. Please, have a seat."

The pair slipped in and walked toward the chairs in front of her desk, though they staggered to a halt when they both went for the right-hand one; they just stood there staring at each other for a second before Mr. Daye stretched out his hand to signal his counterpart to take it and instead sat in the one on the left. Not, Griselda knew, that such a thing should be a surprise. The pair were clearly still uncomfortable with each other as a result of their houses' long feud.

During her time as the interim headmistress, she had noticed that there had developed a trend never to have a Slytherin and a Gryffindor be Head Boy and Girl at the same time. It was a minor issue on the face of it, but to her it seemed like another aspect of the widening gulf between Lions and Snakes, a division that had been present to some extent when she was in Hogwarts over a century and a half before but that had greatly worsened since then. Nor could she blame Dumbledore for this the way she could for other problems within the school; as far as her and Umbridge's research indicated, the deterioration had started sometime in the nineteen-teens or -twenties, when Dumbledore was still just a fresh-faced Transfiguration professor and had little influence in wider inter-house relations. Even his own actions, which had certainly exacerbated the problem, were probably more a result of this division than the cause.

When she had to choose this year's Head Students, she had decided to buck that trend, pulling Miss Torquill from Slytherin and Mr. Daye from Gryffindor from the list of available prefects and shoving them together. She was not expecting the pair to work together smoothly from the word 'go' – though she hoped they had not come by today because of any problems – but all the records and her own observations had indicated that the pair were both fairly easy-going and would have few problems once they stopped dancing around each other. If their houses saw how these two could cooperate, maybe they would be willing to put aside their own grudges, or at least try, and take the first steps toward reconciliation.

And even if that failed, the pair she had chosen were both deserving of their new positions. For all she was using them as an example of inter-house cooperation, her Hufflepuff sense of fair play would not allow her to promote someone just so she could use them for her own purposes.

The pair had held a silent conversation during her own introspection, one consisting entirely of hopeful expressions and raised eyebrows and grimaces. Finally, Miss Torquill rolled her eyes and turned back to Griselda. "Headmistress, we wanted to talk to you about the Hogsmeade weekends."

That was not what she had expected. "What about them?" She had canceled the outings to Hogsmeade for the fall term because the town was still mostly destroyed and only in the first stages of rebuilding, so this complaint probably had to do with that, but she was curious what exactly they wanted. Surely they were not going to demand to be allowed to visit piles of rubble, and if they wanted to visit the memorial set up for the fallen villagers and students, the young woman would not have phrased her statement as she had.

Mr. Daye picked up the conversation from his companion. "My uncle's company is one of the ones involved in Hogsmeade's rebuilding, and I heard from him that the town is probably going to wind up even smaller than it was before last year. It was hard enough to find interesting things to do before, and with there being even less, Hogsmeade really won't be that good of a place to visit or shop."

"Not to mention that many students just used it as an excuse to hail the Knight Bus and go somewhere else," the Head Girl girl cut in when he began to falter. "That's what we wanted to discuss with you. Rather than canceling the Hogsmeade visits for the term, would you be willing to let us go to a different shopping area on those weekends, instead?"

Griselda sat back and laced her hands in front of her, though her thoughtful pose was ruined when a lock of white hair fell into her face. The students thankfully held their giggles behind quivering lips when she had to blow it out of the way. It was not a terrible idea, especially considering that it would only be a formal acknowledgement of an arrangement she had not known about but could do very little to stop, but there were some problems she could see with that plan. "One of the benefits of allowing students to go to Hogsmeade was that it was close to the castle. If something happened, students would be able to return to the castle in short order, and it was easy for professors to arrive there to handle the situation. Were you to go elsewhere, you would not have those protections."

"With all due respect, Headmistress, those protections didn't do us much good last year."

She had to give the younger witch a nod at that unfortunately accurate rebuttal. "No, they didn't. But shouldn't that then mean I should cancel all Hogsmeade visits until this war is over?"

"That will do more harm than good," Mr. Daye said. "I've already overheard some of the fifth- and sixth-years talking about sneaking over or around the gates on the weekends so they could go somewhere where they could call the Knight Bus from, and a few people from my own year in multiple houses have tossed around the idea of finding some spot where the wards are weaker and Disapparating out."

"Do you think they'll succeed?"

"Probably not," he admitted, "but then there will just be more chaos in the school itself. And with the current… tensions"—he glanced at his counterpart, who tried and failed to hide her own worries by toying with her dark hair—"I know that's going to end badly."

A sigh left Griselda of its own accord. She had not thought of it in that light, but his concerns were well-founded. A large group of stressed adolescents without a route to blow off their youthful exuberance? That energy being bent to mischief or even violence was not a certainty, but it was a problem that would be better to defuse now rather than let sit. "Assuming I agree to this proposal"—which, the more she thought about it, the more likely she was going to do—"where do you suggest they go?"

"Well, there's always Diagon Alley—"

"No." He looked up at her in shock at her sudden interruption. "Diagon provides too many opportunities for someone to get lost, and even with the Ministry's increased presence, it is still connected to Knockturn. I will not sign off on that."

"What about Edinburgh?" She and Mr. Daye glanced over at Miss Torquill. "It's smaller than Diagon, only four or five streets, and it doesn't have an alleyway leading to an area like Knockturn. It has a number of different shops, too; I've gone there with my sister a couple of times. There have been Patrolmen stationed there ever since the attack on Diagon, so it should be fairly safe."

"That could work," Mr. Daye muttered quietly, and she gave the pair a short nod of agreement. Self-contained, a DMLE presence, enough variety to keep the other students from wandering off; this might be a better place to send the children than even the Hogsmeade of the last few years.

There were still some problems that would have to be handled if this was going to happen. She could think of a few compromises, but her curiosity had been piqued. These two had done so well already; how would they react to a few more challenges? "The Board of Governors will need to approve this since we are talking about the students traveling so far from the castle, and I don't know if they will go for letting the younger students wander around freely like that."

"Well," the Head Boy said after a few seconds of thought, "what if we limited it just to fifth-years and up? The NEWT students are definitely all old enough to be able to take care of themselves, though the fifth-years probably are, too, and with the stress of the OWLs, it's them along with the seventh-years I'm most worried about starting something. Maybe have them get another form signed by their parents that would give them permission to leave the school on Hogsmeade weekends?"

"If we mention that there are always people from the DMLE around on the form itself, more should be willing to sign," added Miss Torquill.

"Then it is just getting the Board to agree. I could write the proposal myself, but I have a great deal to do already, and I think they would be more interested in it if you wrote it yourself and I just gave it my approval." And, she did not say, writing a persuasive proposal like this would be a good skill for them to learn, not to mention they would feel more invested in the process if they not only came up with the idea but also played a major role in getting it approved. Fishing out a slip of parchment from the pile on her desk, she scribbled out a few words and passed it over to the pair. "Here are some of the general topics you should probably include in the proposal. Once you have it written out, get the other prefects to sign it as well. The more names there are, the better, and if I can tell the Board honestly that this is all the prefects, they will be more likely to take it seriously."

"Okay," he said in a weak voice.

Griselda smiled gently at their obvious nervousness. It was a good thing she was not going to throw them to the wolves, no matter how much more work her idea was going to make for her than if she just did it all. "If you want"—because they would, she had no fears about that—"I will be willing to look it over a few times before you hand it to the prefects. I won't write it for you, but I can take a few minutes here and there to make corrections and give you some suggestions."

"We understand. Thank you for your time, Headmistress." The pair stood, and Miss Torquill continued, "We should have a rough draft of the proposal ready for you within the next day or so."

"Next day or— Oh! Yes." Nodding quickly, though she could not tell if it was because of his understanding or him just wanting to avoid his partner's irritated glare, the Head Boy was the first one out the door.

Alone again, Griselda finally let out the laugh that she had carefully kept hidden. If being Headmistress meant she got to have more little chats and teaching moments with the students like this, perhaps she could handle all the extra paperwork she now had to deal with.

Her good mood buoyed her for the rest of the day.

* * *

**Bonus points for anyone who knows where I got the names for the Head Boy and Girl.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	12. The Enemy of my Enemy

**Sjstaudt:**  Right series, but 'Mr. Daye' should have given you a hint that we're dealing with Simone Torquill, not to be confused with her twin sister Sylvia. :-)

**Now that Volume 3 of RWBY is complete, I've put up a poll regarding exactly what to do about my planned crossover with that series. Even if you aren't interested, there is an option that would affect this story's update rate, so it would still behoove you to at least take a look at it.**

**Two more pieces of fan-art on my profile, both from Anna-chan17. In other news, I'm shocked at how wide-spread you guys are. The story stats show a whopping 73 countries represented!**

**Disclaimer:**  For all that they were critical to the last book, was there ever an explanation on what the criteria for forming a life debt were or why Rowling claimed Ginny didn't owe Harry one for saving her in the Chamber of Secrets? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter series; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 12  
** **The Enemy of My Enemy**

The wind whipping past Jen's face brought out a smile, and she swung her body in another vertical loop just because she could. She could deem this test of her new flight spell a resounding success.

When she snuck into the Davises' home and murdered their patriarch several months prior, she had noticed that her original manner of unassisted flight – conjuring up a gravity well a set distance from her body and then perpetually 'falling' into it – had a number of flaws she had not previously paid any mind, most importantly that while her spell was adequate for flights in a straight line and at a single speed, changing speeds was difficult and maneuverability was all but a dream. She had decided then that she would need to make some changes, and the news over the summer that the Death Eaters had been seen fighting alongside harpies had only driven home just how important aerial superiority could be in the future. Thankfully, her unique method of spellcasting gave her an advantage. Unlike most witches, she did not treat levitation, summoning, or banishing as individual and unrelated spells; all three were force vectors applied to an object, just in different directions and at different intensities. By applying that knowledge to her newest challenge, she had engineered a method of flight that was almost embarrassing in its simplicity, although it had also been rather slow. A weightlessness component added into it quickly alleviated that issue, and this was the result: incredible speed in all three dimensions, hovering at will, and all the maneuverability she could ever need thanks to possessing zero effective mass and therefore having no inertia.

She was also working on an arithmantic breakdown for her new spell, from which she hoped to discern a usable set of wand movements. They were not important for her, but unless she risked putting any future members of House Black through the same ritual that made her wandless magic possible – a ritual that had exactly one recorded survival – she would need to make this spell usable with a focus if she wanted it to be accessible to later generations, and unlike secondary foci, a formal spell could be cast in multiple places simultaneously.

Still, those were all problems for tomorrow. Today, she only had one thing to worry about: what she was going to do about the white wizard trying to kill her, and what Priest could possibly mean when the letter he finally sent her said they had run into a problem.

Her feet landed on the gravel beneath her without jarring a single pebble out of place, and Jen frowned thoughtfully as she dismissed the spell. She never expected to have to fight hand-to-hand while flying, but if being weightless took that option completely off the table, it was something else she would need to keep in mind.

The rusted warehouse she stood before was obviously abandoned, or it had been before the pair of black mages took up residence within. She opened the heavy metal door and peered through the gloom within, a chuckle soon slipping out. "I don't know if they were going for horror movie chic, but they nailed it," she muttered to herself.

For all the space Menagerie and Priest had available to them, they were not taking advantage of it. A few lanterns hung unsupported in the air and created puddles of light with long stretches of darkness in between. In one corner stood several cheap desks and a couple of chairs, five lanterns positioned above to provide adequate lighting for anyone working, and another group of lights were clustered around the section of chainlink fence they had stolen from somewhere and supported between two stacks of crates. The rest of the building was still filled with more crates and boxes and pallets, merchandise that presumably had been forgotten over the years. She nonchalantly made her way from lamp to lamp, trusting her sonar more than her eyes to find any obstacles in her path, and once she reached it, she gazed thoughtfully at the strange stretch of fencing. "Do you know where the two people who stole you went?" she finally asked.

The twelve, maybe thirteen-year-old boy who was tied to the metal frightfully shook his head.

"Of course not. That would make things too easy." Her hand reached out to pat the Muggle boy on his bared chest, though if the desperate sobs that slipped through the gag in his mouth were any indication, Jen's attempt at comforting was unappreciated. "Hey!" she shouted at the stacks that blocked her view of the depths of the warehouse. "One of you left your toy out!" No words answered her, only the increased squirming of their captive. After another second or two, she added, "If someone doesn't claim him, I'm taking him for myself!"

The motion beneath her hand stopped.

"That won't be necessary, Queen," a smooth voice from directly behind her said, and Jen jerked at the unexpected sound. Priest stepped out of the shadows to stand beside her, dressed once again in a full suit. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. Menagerie is still looking for something, but she should not be too long."

Jen rolled her eyes. "That's unfortunate. I wouldn't mind her taking a little longer than that. And no offense," she added, her fingernails tapping on the skin of the shirtless boy in front of them, "but this is the worst stripping job I've ever seen. It's almost impressive in how bad it is."

"His shirt gave us enough material to tie him up. There was no need for further disrobing after that."

"Right." The dark-skinned man merely nodded and said nothing, and after a couple of moments she was the one whose patience broke. "You said there was a problem?"

"I did. As a result of our many years of experience, Menagerie and I know a number of different methods by which to locate our targets. In this case, however, the vast majority have failed." Curiously, Priest's voice showed no concern with that fact. He almost sounded like it was at best a remote concern.

Jen was not quite so restrained, but she was also the one being active hunted. "Failed. It's been three weeks since you got here, and you still don't know where he is?!" Priest just shook his head, and she took a moment to try to calm herself down. "Is that as bad a sign as I think it is?"

"Yes and no. We have successfully hunted other white mages who we have had difficulty tracking down, but generally with greater collateral damage. Unfortunately, for an enemy to be under that many anti-divination spells means he is either paranoid or highly experienced in the way we do things." She shook her head in disappointment. If they had asked her, she could have told them that already; the Baron was not one to provide warnings unnecessarily, and he himself had told her she needed to be careful around this white wizard. "Either option is a poor one. That is not to say that all is lost; we still have a few tricks left to try, and one of them we have never found to fail completely, even if it can be hindered. That is why our young assistant is here," he added with a wave to the captive.

Mutters came from the same corridor of crates Priest had presumably exited, and soon enough a head of pink hair came into view. "So you are here, after all," sneered Menagerie. "And here I hoped Priest had just finally cracked. Why the hell did you give her our location,  _vlákes_?"

The avatar of Sutekh just smiled at the chiding tone. "If the white wizard is as canny as we presume him to be, an extra set of hands can only be of use in killing him. Do not be jealous."

"Jealous?!" The tattooed witch laughed harshly and brandished a strange knife at Jen. "Not even you could mess up reading people that badly. Queenie over here has nothing I could be jealous of."

"I don't know. You sound a little defensive to me." Eyeing the long weapon still pointing at her for just a moment, particularly the sharp hook sprouting from the front of the blade, she smiled. "Nice knife."

"You got a problem with it?"

"Not at all. It's just, I thought it was guys who had to have something big and hard to make up for what they lacked." Cocking her head, she taunted, "Unless there's something I should know?"

The smile she received in response was dark and cold. "You'll get to know how it feels to get stabbed if you keep talking."

"Oh, that'd be a neat trick! I own dildos deadlier that that."

"And on that note," Priest said, stepping in between them, "I think we should return to the business that brought us here in the first place. Menagerie, if you would? Queen, you might want to take a step back. This is going to get messy."

The other black witch gave her a dismissive glance over one shoulder before plunging the point of her knife's hook into the Muggle's belly, and Jen looked over at Priest. "There is a point to this, I assume?"

"Of course. There are many useful tracking methods we employ, but one that has yet to fail us is splanchomancy. So long as our quarry has chosen to hide himself amongst the public and use them to cloak his own movements, there is no way for him to truly hide from us, and white wizards rarely stay off on their own. They prefer to position themselves where they can vanish into a crowd."

"Splanchomancy?" she repeated, the rest of the black wizard's commentary only being noted peripherally. "I've read about that, but never have I actually seen it in use."

"Then you are in luck. However abrasive Menagerie can be, she truly has a talent for this form of divination. It should be quite an educational experience," he said with a small smile.

Jen turned her head back to the pink-haired witch and her victim. Splanchomancy, also known as anthropomancy, was a form of haruspicy, or divination through reading entrails. More specifically, it was reading the entrails of a still-living human being and preferably a virgin, which explained why it was a young boy from whom Menagerie was currently pulling out loop after loop of pink intestine. The older of the black witches did nothing about her victim's muffled screams as she ran portions of the squishy tube through her fingers and used her blade to hack out other sections, and soon enough the entire length of his intestines lay in a wide pile at her feet. The process was not yet finished, though. Reaching in, Menagerie first pulled out a dark organ that Jen recognized as a spleen and bit it in several places, and then she slid the knife back in and withdrew the child's liver amidst a waterfall of blood. This she did not try to eat, though she did cut into it multiple times to peer inside. Several minutes after the process began, she stumbled away from the fencing toward the group of desks, Priest moving to follow her.

Though she took a step in that direction as well, Jen did not immediately join them. It was silly, she knew, but instead she walked back over to the dying boy's body. The red puddle beneath her feet threatened to send her to the ground, but she ignored that to lean in and press a small kiss on the child's forehead. "Thank you," she murmured against his trembling skin, "for with your death, you have helped me stay alive. May you find the peace we took from you when you reach Guinea."

As soon as that was done, she hurried to join her current allies; she might not be a Metamorphmagus like Dora, but the Black blood running through her veins let her fight back the blush that wanted to light up her cheeks by the time she reached them. Thanking her victims, at least the ones who had not angered her or had done her no ill beforehand, was a habit she had gotten into when she was just starting off on the path of Voodoo. Elsie had mocked her multiple times for it – what good was thanking the dead, particularly when she was the one who murdered them? – but in her childish mind, there was a feeling of fairness to it that she thought right and proper. When she grew older, she had cast away that last expectation of fairness, but she never had gotten around to breaking herself of her custom. It hurt no one, and for all that it could be seen as embarrassing for a black witch to do, there was still just something appropriate about it.

The other black mages had not noticed her absence, too preoccupied with the extremely rough sketch Menagerie was drawing on a sheet of parchment. A few lines crisscrossed the space, radiating in a web that originated from a few central points with the exception of the thickest one that swerved drunkenly across the sheet, and large blots of ink were splattered throughout seemingly at random. "This is the best I could get," the pink-haired witch explained as she glared at her drawing. "Either our wizard abandoned tradition and hid himself away somewhere remote or he's found a spell that makes even splanchomancy difficult."

"Unfortunately for us, I think it might be the latter," Jen said slowly. Her finger followed the thick line from its starting point toward the right-hand side of the drawing. Maps had never been something she paid much attention to because of her blindness, but this matched one of the few important ones she had done her best to learn since regaining her sight. "I think this might be the Thames, and that would make these"—she pointed to the web—"the A roads and motorways within the Greater London area."

"From your tone, I take it this is not good news?" asked Priest.

She shook her head. "It's not bad news, not compared to having to search the whole island for him, but it's still more that 1,500 square kilometers of the most densely populated area of the country. That gives him plenty of places where he can hide, especially since he can move from place to place quickly and easily by either magic or Muggle means."

A wet crunch sounded from a short distance away, and Jen whipped her eyes over to find the source. Two large beasts were gathered around the boy's corpse, one gorging itself on the pile of viscera on the ground while the other had just bitten off his leg. Neither were animals she recognized: the one munching on the discarded intestines was feline in structure, though no big cat had a head that blocky or grey-green scales covering its body, and its companion could have been mistaken for a shaggy wolf were it not for the overlarge saber teeth or the sharply pointed antlers growing out of its head. It was possible that she had simply never heard of these creatures – Luna was the zoologist of their group, not her – but considering that Tiamat granted the black magic of life alchemy, she turned to the more likely culprit. "Those are yours, I'm guessing?"

Menagerie just shot her a prideful smirk and turned back to the rough map she had drawn. "If this place is as big as you say it is, we need to start searching now. You're the local here; where's the best place to go first?"

"Considering he can move anywhere he wants at any time he wants, I'm not sure there is a best place. We might as well start near the edges, though. If he's smart, he'd look for dilapidated urban areas where people will be less likely to stumble upon him…"

* * *

Ginny watched the locked door closely. It was just about time for the last period of the day to let out, and she knew if she did not get her quarry's attention now, she would have a hard time scrounging up the courage to try again. She was already having second thoughts as it was.

Soon enough, the ringing from the bell tower echoed down into the dungeons, and a minute later, the door leading to the Potions classroom opened up to let out the people who were foolish enough to volunteer for another two years under Snape. The few Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs in the class were the first to flee, followed by a trickle of mixed Ravenclaws and Slytherins. Spotting a head of blond hair, she pointed her wand at the boy's bag and whispered, " _Accio_."

Just as she wanted, the pull on Malfoy's bag jerked the Snake in her direction, and he looked around with narrowed eyes for a long moment before he smirked. A few long steps led him away from the rest of the class and to the same wall she was leaning against. For a moment Ginny was worried that she could be seen through the Notice-Me-Not Charm Bill had taught her a couple of years before, but he took up a position several feet away from her without saying a word, and for all the strange glances he received from the other Slytherins, none of them moved on to her. The line of students trailed off, but still she kept her silence; she knew from Hermione's ranting earlier in the year that there was one more person in the sixth-year Potions class, and sure enough, Black eventually walked out. The Ravenclaw raised one eyebrow in Malfoy's direction, and then the older witch's purple eyes rolled smoothly to stare directly at Ginny. Just when she thought she was about to have a heart attack from how fast her heart was pounding, the dark-haired girl shrugged her shoulders and walked off, one hand toying absently with an earring.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Malfoy taunted once no one else was in sight.

Forcing her shoulders back, Ginny nodded. It was now or never, and she was not going to show weakness to a Malfoy of all people. A flick of her wand and a muttered incantation took down the spell. "Malfoy."

"Weasley," he replied, a small grin peering nastily at her. "And here I was, thinking you had rejected my proposal. You certainly took your time making up your mind."

"I haven't said I'm accepting your 'proposal' yet." Of all the comments she could have made, that was among the weakest, and from Malfoy's expression, he knew it, too. The truth was that she was seriously considering taking him up on his offer. She had spent the last couple of weeks checking the things he had told her when he ambushed her, and to her shock, several of his claims, such as the Chang family's wealth or the Potters' history of marrying within the old Pureblood families, had checked out. And then, to make matters even more complicated, Black, whom Ginny knew had a terrible relationship with Malfoy regardless of them being cousins, had come up to her at Luna's request and verified even more. The rich witch had even suggested she make a deal with Malfoy despite being told nothing of the situation!

If two people who hated each other and knew nothing of the other's conversation were still in agreement about a topic, the chances that it was a lie dropped lower and lower.

Unaware of her thoughts, the Slytherin just nodded. "Fair enough, but you aren't rejecting it, either. So why get my attention if you haven't made up your mind?"

"I want some answers." He nodded pompously, like he was granting her some great boon, and she tempered the urge to punch him in the mouth like Hermione had claimed to do back when the bushy brunette was a third-year. She wouldn't get any answers out of him if she knocked out his too-shiny teeth. "Your parents hate mine, and you and Ron have gotten into lots of arguments since you got here. But now you're saying that you want to 'help' me. Why?"

"That's a very good question," he praised. "You're right: my father despises yours, and I don't like your brother in the slightest. But your father and your brother aren't  _you_. Do you know what I see when I look at you?"

She crossed her arms and shot him a look that just dared him to make fun of her.

"I see a girl who was raised away from wizarding society, who knows little about the workings of her own culture and has practically no money to her name, but instead of futilely fighting the system the way her father does, she's working within it to get what she wants. She found herself a noble family who likes her and has her eyes on their famous heir so she can live the lifestyle she never had growing up—"

"That's not what I'm doing at all!" Ginny shouted, anger warring with disgust at being described like that. He was making her sound like she was some dishonest, manipulative, scheming… Slytherin! "I didn't fall in love with Danny for his money!"

He rolled his eyes and mockingly countered, "Oh, you didn't? You're saying that you would feel the same way about him if he weren't a rich hero, if he were just a regular wizard instead of the much-adored Boy-Who-Lived?"

That… That was a stupid question! Danny was a hero, but not because of what people said about him. That was just the kind of person he was. Yes, of course she loved him for it; he saved her when she was in danger, when she was dying in the Chamber of Secrets and had no one she could go to for help. Danny wouldn't be Danny if he weren't a hero, so what was the point of imagining him without those qualities? She wouldn't be in love with Danny then, just some other person wearing his face and calling himself by his name.

"Didn't think so," Malfoy continued when she did not say anything in reply, "so spare me your offended indignation. I don't have a problem with you going after your hero so you can climb the social ladder. In fact, I applaud it. You want to know why I'm willing to help? The answer is, how could I not lend a hand when finally there's a Weasley who's actually acting like the Pureblood she is?"

Ginny reared back as if he had slapped her across the face. "How dare you?! I'm not a bigot like you, Malfoy! I don't look down on Muggleborns because of their parents like all your mates do! We might not have a lot of money, but we would never associate with you and your—"

Malfoy cut her off by laughing uproariously. "Dear Merlin, you actually believe that, don't you?" he choked out. "Don't you know your own family's history?"

"Of course I do," she lied. Her parents had told them about their aunts and uncles and cousins, but she had a feeling he was talking about stuff that happened centuries ago and no longer mattered to anyone. That she had never learned, but the Weasleys weren't Dark; they looked for what they could do to make the world a better place now rather than boast about what their great-great-great-grandfather did hundreds of years ago.

"Clearly you don't. If you did, you wouldn't have said something so incredibly wrong." At long last getting ahold of himself, Malfoy shook his head. "Let me enlighten you. Your family was never noble, but you used to have money. You used to rub elbows with Houses like the Notts and the Blacks and the Greengrasses. If you spent the time tracking down Ministry records to check your family tree, you'd find that your ancestors even married into those kinds of families." His eyes grew distant for a moment, and he added, "In fact, I want to say that a Weasley married a Black only a couple of generations ago. Septimus and Cedrella, I think?"

Swallowing the shocked sound that almost slipped out at hearing her paternal grandparents' names – Her grandmother was a Black? She and Jennifer Black were cousins of some kind?! Why had no one ever mentioned that to her?! – she haltingly replied, "W-Well, even if we did, we don't anymore. We stopped because we're actually decent people and refuse to spend our time around anyone who looks down on other people for a stupid reason like who their parents are."

"Sure, and your brother insulted me the first time we met on the Hogwarts express for some reason other than just because your father hates my father."

She opened her mouth to deny that, but the words wouldn't come. Now that she thought about it, she knew that Ron and Malfoy had gotten into a big fight early on in their first year, but no one had ever told her just how the fight started. Her dad, in fact, had been proud when McGonagall wrote a letter telling them about it, or he was until her mum got mad at him for not taking it seriously. Ron and she had always known that Lucius Malfoy was an awful person, but was picking a fight with this Malfoy because of who his father was any better than how the Pureblood fanatics bullied Muggleborns? Even though Malfoy was a bigot, that was no reason for them to stoop to his level.

"And that's the reason you're willing to help me? Because I'm acting like how you think a Pureblood should act?" Black helping her because Luna asked her to, Malfoy helping her because he thought she trying to become 'acceptable' to society; weren't people who were Dark supposed to be self-centered and selfish, caring only about themselves? If Black and Malfoy were being honest, they were acting like they were really some strange variant of Light people.

"Isn't that reason enough?"

Ginny had no good response to that. Silence hung between them for a time before she finally admitted, "I don't remember if you ever said what kind of help you were offering."

"Like I told you, everything you need to get a hook in Potter you can get with enough gold," he answered with a shrug. "You don't have it, but I do. I'm more than happy to hand you all the galleons you need for better outfits and makeup and maybe even the dates themselves."

"I don't need your—" Clamping down on her instinctive rejection of his charity, she took a couple of deep breaths. If he was right – and her reasons for thinking he might not be were dwindling the more he talked – then she really did need that money. It just pained her to admit to it. "Let's say I agree and accept your gold. You're going to expect me to pay it back, aren't you? And with interest?"

Malfoy waggled his hand from side to side, a laid-back motion that was at complete odds with how she had always believed him to be. "I will want compensation of some kind, but no, this isn't a straight loan. That wouldn't make any sense. If you succeed in earning Potter's affections and become Lady Potter, paying me back in galleons would be trivial; if you fail, you won't have the money to pay me back at all. No, it's much better if you owe me a couple of favors once we're out of Hogwarts and in the real world."

"What kind of favors are you talking about?" she asked, a little voice in the back of her head screaming at her with how suspicious that sounded. If there was one thing she had learned about the other houses at Hogwarts, it was that it was a terrible idea to make an open-ended deal with a Slytherin and be beholden to them later on.

"I don't know. Oh, come on," he said when she just glared at his flippant answer, "what kind of person do you take me for? It's not like I'm going to force you to do anything illegal or immoral. I just don't know what I'll need someone to help me with in the future, so I can't tell you exactly what I'll want. After everything I'm willing to do to get you what you want, is it really that unfair for me to be able to ask you to do the same for me later on?"

Okay, that wasn't too bad. And, she realized with a hidden smile, if he did try to use his favors to make her do something she didn't want to do, she could always just tell him no. This agreement was not going to be inescapably binding like a life debt or something. In fact, there was no reason she had to repay him at all, no matter the reason he asked for her help. "That sounds acceptable," she told him.

"I'm glad you think so." Despite his droll voice, he stretched out his hand. "So do we have a deal?"

She clasped his hand in her own and gave it a single pump. "We have a deal."

* * *

The small room above the bar was quickly filling up, and Mad-Eye Moody flicked his wand to set off an ear-piercing whistle. "That's enough of that," he barked at the people gathered together. Fourteen of them in total; about three times the number he honestly thought would show up, but still far fewer than he expected he would eventually need. "Now, I know none of you know everyone in this room, but you should all at least recognize some of you. We can leave all the friendly introduction stuff till later. What's important now is that we all know why we're here, namely keeping Albus and the Order as a whole from being bloody stupid and picking a fight with the Ministry."

The group stilled at his declaration. He had hinted at this idea with all of them, either during the training sessions he had led or during the socializing once the official meetings were over, but this was the first time he had ever been this obvious about it. Several people looked over at each other cautiously, and finally one wizard found the courage to ask, "But if Dumbledore is right, if the Ministry is starting to move against us, shouldn't we take a stand against them in return?"

"Aye, we should," he said with a nod, " _if_  he was right and  _if_  the Ministry thought we were an enemy. But he's not, and they don't." The assembled Order members looked at him in confusion. "I know Rufus Scrimgeour personally; we worked together several times when I was still an active Auror. We actually had a short chat a week ago, and do you know what he said? He told me that the real reason the DMLE's decided not to play ball anymore was because he got tired of members of the Order trying to interfere in how he ran his department and throwing spanners in the works when the Aurors went out to arrest the Death Eaters."

That was stretching the truth a little, though looking at the shock the people in front of him were putting on display, they couldn't handle the truth. In reality, it was anything but a 'short chat'; he had spent over an hour just arguing with Rufus to the point that the younger wizard would stop holding his cards so close to the vest and tell him what was going on, and then half of another convincing Rufus that he could be trusted with the information. What he had finally learned was disappointing and infuriating in equal measure: Albus and a small number of other Order members had caused so much trouble that the higher-ups DMLE refused to use the intelligence being forwarded to them for fear of being used as patsies and, in fact, were considering a blanket order that any Order member caught in the field was to be arrested for vigilanteism – actions that, while technically a crime in Britain, the Ministry had turned a blind eye to during the First Death Eater War and so far in the Second – with obstruction of justice charges to follow if the arrested members refused to cooperate once in custody.

Albus, had Mad-Eye said anything about this, would have taken it as further evidence that the Ministry was persecuting the Order. He, on the other hand, saw it for what it was: an alliance failing at the exact wrong time and for no good reason.

"But why would Dumbledore say the Ministry has turned against us if they aren't?"

"Let me tell you something you don't know about Albus Dumbledore, Washington," he said, though they all knew he was addressing all of them. "I first met him back in the Grindelwald War, fifty-something years ago. I've been good friends with him ever since. But if there's one thing Albus is absolutely awful at, it's playing well with others. In his mind, you're either with him or you're against him, and the idea of having allies who are working toward the same goal as him but go about it their own way? He just can't seem to wrap his head around that." Back when they first met, they had almost come to blows about a topic very similar to this one; Albus thought that if Continental governments were that desperate for Britain's aid, they should shut up and follow Britain's lead, but Mad-Eye had maintained the only way to defeat the ever-growing membership of the Knights of Walpurgis was for everyone to put their nationalistic pride aside and fight as the united defenders of Europe.

Albus singlehandedly ending the war by challenging and defeating Grindelwald in a duel hadn't done much to reveal the flaws in his opinions, unfortunately.

"So the Ministry doesn't want to cooperate any longer," one witch said dismissively. "That just means fewer bumbling bureaucrats we have to deal with. I don't see why that's so much of a problem. Even if they did set their sights on us, it isn't like they can do anything."

Thankfully, he was not the only one who stared at the idiotic witch in total disbelief; he even focused his roving eye on her to make sure she paid attention to what he was about to say. "There are two very big reasons you don't want the Ministry to decide to come after the Order," he growled at the woman. "First, the Ministry isn't our enemy; our enemy is the Death Eaters. We aren't the Ministry's enemies, either; again, that's the damn Death Eaters. There is absolutely no reason for either of us to waste our time or our resources fighting each other when there are heartless beasts running around murdering people in cold blood. That by itself should be a good enough reason not to make an enemy out of the Ministry."

"Because we're doing their jobs for them—"

"Second," he cut in loudly, "if the Ministry decided it was going to take on the Order, you would get bloody well slaughtered. The Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, what a lot of people think is the 'weakest' of the DMLE offices, still outnumbers the Order three to one all on its own. That's not counting the Hit Wizard Squad or the Auror Corps, or the administrators, all of whom are former Patrolmen, Hit Wizards, or Aurors. The total combatants the DMLE could bring to bear outnumber you four or even five to one, and let me tell you something, missy: you're no Auror. If you don't care about stopping the Death Eaters – and if you don't, I don't know why you're even here – you'd better start caring about not making an enemy of people who would tear through you like they can."

Washington hesitantly cleared his throat. " _'You_ '? You're not counting yourself with us?"

He leaned back in his chair and let his electric-blue eye resume rolling around. "In a fight between the Order and the Ministry, one the Order started? I'd have a hard time deciding who to fight alongside. You'd deserve everything you'd get, and if I absolutely had to choose between a bunch of fools who got hopped up on their own importance enough to start a fight against the government just like the Death Eaters have done or the men and women who are just doing the best they can to keep this country in one piece, I don't think you'd like my answer."

That admission set worried glances flying among the gathered rebels, particularly those whom he and Albus had worked together to protect during that horrible ambush a few months before. Of course, it could also have been the unflattering comparison of several of the more confrontational Order members, none of whom he had invited to this meeting, to the very monsters they had banded together to defeat. "Like I said, not something anyone wants to deal with. Not me, not you, not the Ministry. I'd much rather we smooth things over with the DMLE and get back to fighting the real bad guys, but Albus's ego is getting in the way at the worst possible time, and I can't change every mind in the Order all on my own. I need your help to keep a fight that nobody really wants from starting."

"How are we supposed to do that? You don't want us to fight the rest of the Order, do you?"

"What did I just say about fighting your own allies instead of your enemies?" The wizard who had posed that question, along with everyone else in the room, relaxed somewhat at his blunt statement. "We're not trying to split the Order up or turn on anybody. We're just working together to keep anyone from making a dumb mistake that makes everything a hell of a lot worse for everybody. Talk to the rest of the Order, try to get them to understand just how bad things could be if we keep going down this road. And count yourselves lucky that I'm giving you the easy jobs," he added with a sour grunt. "Somebody's got to try to get this through Albus's thick skull, and none of you can do it. I'm stuck with that."

The impromptu inaugural meeting of the 'Second Order', as one fool witch called it, continued for several more minutes before he shooed them all out of the room and back to their own homes. Mad-Eye stretched his good leg and thumped out and down the stairs to the bar below, a couple of silver coins getting tossed into the bartender's hand. "Got any beer that isn't your regular crap?"

"Fresh goat piss. Probably'd taste better, too." A heavy mug was slammed next to his hands, the yellowish ale inside sloshing around and threatening to splash out. "Not that you're gonna drink it, anyway."

Mad-Eye grunted and took a swig from the flask he pulled out of his pocket. Single-malt scotch, three different pain-relieving potions, and a shot of Pepper-Up to keep that witch's brew from sending him into a never-ending nap. The old Healer he was buddies with hated his guts for drinking it all the time, but he had plenty more injuries than just his face and leg. When that much of his body had been hacked, burned, torn, frozen, melted, blasted, and generally cursed off him, it wasn't like he had a lot of options for effective pain control. "You're like a cheap whore. Gotta pay you to grab your attention for five minutes."

A single laugh was all his comment earned him, and the bartender leaned over and stroked his scraggly grey beard. "So what did my 'genius' brother bollix up beyond all recognition this time around?" Aberforth asked in a mutter.

Blue eyes, three of them, rolled over the few stragglers in the Hog's Head, and two wands threw up a variety of privacy charms before Mad-Eye answered the question. "He's gotten it in his head that Ministry has it out for him. Which it does, but that's only because of his own cock-ups."

"Wish I could say I don't think Albus'd play with a bunch of kids' heads like that, but I can't. It was a surprise, sure, but I'd believe he did it in a heartbeat. You should have heard the kinds of things he thought could be justified when he was younger. He said they were 'necessary actions to ensure the greatest good', but when Grindelwald tried to put those ideas into practice, the ICW called 'em 'war crimes'."

"I try not to think about it too much, or I'd smash his nose flat again myself." Another long pull from his flask preceded his next admission. "Most of my cadets went to Hogwarts."

Aberforth just let out an understanding hum at that. To those who didn't know him well, it would probably come as a surprise to hear that Mad-Eye had on more than one occasion been accused of coddling the cadets put under his supervision. He didn't wipe their noses for them or remind them to put on some mittens, but he definitely did what he could to keep them as safe as an Auror could be while they were still learning what they were doing. He remembered his own early years in the Corps, fighting in the bombed-out ruins of Muggle towns and mangled landscapes as part of the volunteer combat force attached to the French Chevalier Brigade who were fighting the Knights, and what was more, he remembered just how many newbie Aurors died out on those godforsaken fields defending terrified families from the evil bastards who were trying to take over the world.

So yeah, maybe he went a little out of his way to protect them and teach them all they needed to know to survive, even if that meant bending the truth from time to time. On paper, the criminals who died in firefights were all clean kills, no matter how confused the actual fight had been. One wizard whose little brother's life was threatened unless he informed a crime syndicate of when searches would be done in Knockturn had his acts covered up, and then was listed as mysteriously 'ill' around the same time that syndicate was wiped out to a man. And Tonks, whose incredible ability to look like anyone limited her to a provisional pass on her Stealth and Tracking exam, got a note in her file that said her clumsiness had improved a great deal and earned her her deserved rank when really she was no more graceful than she had been or ever would be.

That was the third reason for organizing this group inside the Order, the one he could never reveal. Once Black and Malfoy were gone, Albus had told everybody else that Tonks had chosen the Ministry over the Order and that he had heard rumors she was turning to the Dark. He had even assigned Shacklebolt to keep an eye on her whenever possible to make sure she did not use her knowledge of the Order's membership against them.

That shite wasn't gonna fly.

If he were a crueler man, Mad-Eye might have let the Ministry tear the Order apart for that disparagement of his latest and possibly greatest protégé and then just remade it from whomever survived the culling, but apparently he was too kind for his own good. He would do his best to keep the Order from arranging its own destruction, but whether or not Albus stayed in power was something he was just going to leave to the whims of Fate.

Aberforth raised bushy eyebrows at the thunderous expression on his face. "Looks like Albus finally made an enemy he can't afford to have coming after him. About time." Stepping back, the younger of the Dumbledore siblings picked up a glass and used a filthy rag to just dirty it up some more. "Some people say that there's nothing scarier than an angry mama bear protecting her cub, but even if that's true, I've always thought that cub's papa can't be much less dangerous."

"I'm not their father. They've got actual parents if they want that." A swig. "Most of 'em, anyway."

Neither man missed that he said nothing about the rest of Aberforth's comment.

* * *

_Jen,_

_Sending you an overdone love sounds like it would be a hilarious idea, and I'm proud you think I was creative enough to come up with it. That is something I would love to take credit for._

_But I can't. I didn't send you that letter._

_I don't know exactly what was in it, but hearing that you thought it pretentious and possessive is not a good sign. I once had a fan write me letters like this, and I made the mistake of ignoring them. She then started stalking me, even breaking into my flat, and it took a Floo call to the police to find her and make it all stop. We both know you can take care of yourself if something like this happens to you, but between you and me, I would much prefer if you didn't have to deal with it at all. Just keep your eyes open, and don't overlook anyone. My stalker didn't look like the kind of person I would have expected it to be, and that oversight caused me a lot of trouble._

_Be careful, Jen. I'll see you again soon._

_With much love,_

_Viktor_

* * *

**It's all Greek to me:**   _vlákes_  – idiot. It's worth noting that Menagerie called Priest this in fond exasperation, something Jen didn't pick up on because of her own unfamiliarity with the two.

… **Maybe putting three evil characters together was a bad idea. I think they're starting to inspire each other, and that can't be good for the local wildlife. RIP, Stephen.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	13. Predator and Prey

**Isa Lumitus:**  Stephen not being mentioned until Jen started talking to him was an intentional choice on my part so as to press home some of the sheer coldness and callousness of her mindset. She was already viewing him as an 'ingredient' and a corpse when she first laid eyes on him (it wasn't the first time she's seen a black mage keep someone around for a short time before using them, after all). Her 'comforting'… wasn't exactly as nice as it looks to be, and honestly, it goes along with her thanking him while he's dying rather than healing him or even just knocking him out.

**More artwork from Anna-chan17 on my profile. For anyone who cares, Abyranss's "reading** _**Princess of the Blacks** _ **" fic is officially abandoned. If anyone else wants to try their hand at it, send me a PM.**

**Also, the poll is now closed. It looks like I'll be working on** _**Deal with a Devil** _ **and putting off** _**Team Hellhound** _ **for a while longer.**

**Disclaimer:**  For a family that was always portrayed as being poor, did they immediately blow the 700 galleon windfall they received in book 3 on an expensive vacation rather than being smart with their money? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

**Yes, I'm aware that people do stuff like this when they win the lottery in real life. I still think it's idiotically short-sighted.**

* * *

**Chapter 13  
** **Predator and Prey**

A faint chime echoed in the small apothecary, and Tracey looked over to find Jen flipping open her pocket watch and staring at it distastefully. "Sorry, but I forgot that I have some House business to deal with."

Most of the heiress's friends merely nodded in understanding, but Luna did not. "What kind of House business?" the blonde asked suspiciously.

"Nothing much. I just need to have lunch with someone, and then I have a few errands I need to take care of. I should be back before we need to return to Hogwarts. If you'll excuse me." The dark-haired witch walked out the door onto Horne street without a backwards glance, which, Tracey decided, was probably a good thing going by the stormy expression on Luna's face.

Making her decision quickly, the Slytherin grabbed the blonde's elbow and gave the other members of Jen's court a wave as she pulled Luna towards the door and out into the main street of Edinburgh's magical market. "We're meeting up at the Paisley Tavern for lunch, right? See you in an hour or so."

"Are you kidnapping me?" Luna asked in a voice that was clearly forcibly bright: it was only as happy as a normal person who had found a surprise Christmas present in July. Thinking on it, Tracey was actually somewhat surprised that she could even hear that difference. "Because Daddy always told me that if I was, I needed to make sure the people who took me knew that the Viatiffers would come after them and take me back, and I really don't want them to hurt you." A brief frown flickered across her face. "They aren't very nice."

"While I'm sure that would be a truly horrible fate," she replied sarcastically, "no, I'm not kidnapping you. You were about to make a scene, and real Slytherins don't make scenes, especially not in public."

"But I'm not a Slytherin."

Tracey raised her chin and gave her a dismissive sniff. "No, but I am, and to my great misfortune, after the last two years, people think we're friends. You causing trouble reflects badly on me."

Finally, a smile started peeking out. "We aren't friends? That's why you spent almost the entire summer with me, even after Morag's grandmother got better and you could stay with her again?"

"Lies and slander." Admittedly, after spending six weeks with Luna, the constant weirdness was no longer so off-putting; she would even go so far as to say she could sort of see what Jen had first found so interesting about the blonde. She was not attracted to Luna, of course, but in terms of friendship…

"You pulled me out of the store so we could talk about all this without risking me embarrassing myself?" Luna guessed.

"No, no, no. Not doing that," she answered with a shudder. "I'm staying as far away from you and Jen's relationship squabbles as I possibly can. I want another pair of eyes, and with Jen gone, you don't have anything else to do." And if helping her out meant Luna would be too busy to dwell on the fact that Jen had almost certainly left to go on a date with yet another prospective suitor? Well, that was obviously just a happy coincidence.

The vague statement obviously piqued the blonde's interest, because she asked immediately, "Another pair of eyes for what?"

"Malfoy. He was entirely too happy to get out this weekend." Silver eyes rolled at that, and she grumpily added, "You don't understand. He wasn't this eager before the first trip to Hogsmeade in third year, but now…" She trailed off for a moment. "There was something off about his excitement, too. It was kind of creepy."

"What are you going to do, then? Follow him until you figure out what he's up to?"

"Why not? Simple plans are sometimes the best." Drawing her wand, she grinned in satisfaction when her locator charm immediately shot a slender red ribbon from the wand's tip, white numbers and letters written on it. This spell was a little more advanced than the Four-Point Spell, which could be used to point at a specific person or thing rather than just due north, and while she had yet to figure out how to interpret the distances the ribbon gave her, she could still figure out that the fewer characters there were, the closer her destination was. Not to mention, it was less obvious than walking around with her hand flat and her wand spinning in a circle on top of it. "He's this way. Come on."

Luna rolled her eyes but followed nonetheless, and they slowly made their way through the crowd of adults, little kids, and fellow Hogwarts students. How the Head Boy and Girl had convinced Marchbanks to let them leave the castle on their scheduled Hogsmeade weekend, she had no idea, but somehow they had, and everyone was happier for it. The upper years got out of the drafty old castle and could see somewhere new and exciting and in far better financial straits than Hogsmeade, the teachers – other than those who had volunteered or, more likely, been volunteered to accompany them – had a chance to be free from most of said students, and the shopkeepers were overjoyed to have what was looking to be a monthly visitation by teens with time and money to burn. Even with only five streets to its name, magical Edinburgh still had many more shops than the village outside of Hogwarts, and after coming here, Tracey doubted anyone would be willing to settle for Hogsmeade again.

She certainly wouldn't. She already had an afternoon reservation at the spa Jen had suggested for both November's and January's outings.

Soon enough, they turned the corner onto Gowdie Street and found their quarry. Why Malfoy would be sitting in Corsette's High Fashions and bouncing his foot impatiently, she had no idea, but the strangeness only made it that much more suspicious. "Now we just need to find a place to wait," she muttered to herself. Of course, with everyone else walking around, where was she going to find somewhere that had a good view but would not make them stand out?

A pair of hands grabbed one of her own. "This way," Luna said excitedly, eyes sparkling with mischief. She followed the odd blonde around a corner and into an alley between two stores, but before she could voice any of the many questions whirling around in her head, Luna waved her wand at herself and—

Okay. She did not know Luna could jump quite that high.

"Hurry up," the Ravenclaw chided from where she stood on the building's roof. "We don't have all day."

Thinking for a moment, Tracey finally figured out what her best friend's girlfriend had done, and a Featherlight Charm later, she joined the younger girl on top of the store. "I'll admit it: this is actually a good plan. What made you think of it?"

"When Daddy and I go out on expeditions, we've always found that being higher up gives us a better vantage point to look for new and interesting creatures. Malfoy is anything but new and interesting," she added with a shrug, "but I thought the same principles might apply."

"Yes, they do." Tracey pulled out the field glasses she had asked her mother to send her – not as good as her cousin's Omnioculars, but they also did not require her to risk her life in going back to the Davis family home – and aimed them at her housemate. She did not need them to see him, but since she could not hear him, this might let her read his lips at least a little bit. Now if only he would start talking.

Unfortunately, Malfoy did not, so a few minutes later, Luna did instead. "I just don't understand," the blonde muttered unhappily. "Why would Jen do this? It isn't like she's interested in any of those men, so why is she looking to marry one of them? And why is she doing it when we're still dating?! And,  _and_ , why isn't anyone else pointing out how wrong that is?! Last year, when Jen cheated on me, all of you got onto her, but for some reason now—"

"To be fair, I didn't side with you or Jen," Tracey pointed out. "I wanted and still want nothing to do with your spats, and I really don't care what you or her or anybody but me gets up to when they're in bed."

"That doesn't explain why it was terrible then, but now, when it's even worse, everyone's suddenly okay with it!"

With a long-suffering sigh, she turned to look at Luna. "Because that's how things work among the noble Houses. The only reason Susan and I aren't also looking for appropriate suitors at the moment is because we're the acting Heads of our Houses. Lord Black's currently running the show for that family, and since he's still around, Jen is doing what she has to do. Padma isn't making a fuss because she told me one day after Care last year that her father was already planning a marriage between her sister and the son of an old business friend of his because it didn't look like she was going to bring anything to their family any other way; I got the impression that's normal in India even for the Common Houses. The MacDougals aren't noble, but they are rich for commoners, and they have married into a Noble House or two in the hopes of eventually elevating themselves to Noble status, so they know how the game is played. Justin's a Muggleborn, but he's close to Susan, so I'm sure she's told him the basics of this by now." Luna stared at her in shock, and with a shrug, she concluded, "Honestly, I was surprised this summer when you said you didn't know any of this, especially since you spent the last year sharing a dorm with Jen. She's as politically minded as I am."

"It never came up," Luna eventually whispered, but then her voice regained its strength. "But Jen wasn't raised by the Blacks; she grew up with that old witch she's mentioned a few times. Lisa? Lizzy? Elsie? Anyway, that means it still doesn't make sense why she would be willing – no,  _eager_  – to go through with it. Her uncle seems like a nice guy. He wouldn't make her get married if she didn't want to."

Tracey looked away and watched Malfoy for another minute, her lips pursed as she thought about what she should say in response. In all honesty, to her it made perfect sense, so the hardest part about all this was forcing herself to try to think from Luna's point of view. A world where people didn't grow up knowing they could be used in their families' political games at any time, where marriages based on love rather than profit were not just the norm but were all there was? How strange that in the same country, there could be two wildly different cultures living side by side, three if she included the Muggles.

Jen was going to owe her big for these mental gymnastics and smoothing the lovebirds' relationship over, she decided. Big enough even to bring her into whatever it was that was driving the heiress to sneak around and excuse herself at odd times. "Off the top of my head, I can think of three reasons why she doesn't have a problem with it."

"Oh? Do tell."

"First, she's thinking about her future kids. Bastard children taking charge of one of the three remaining Ancient and Most Noble Houses? You don't realize just how much that would damage the Blacks' alliances. She needs to be married if she wants a legitimate heir whom she can hand the reins to when she steps down from Ladyship. Besides, don't you remember what she said this summer? That she might not be able to have kids, or at most only one? If she'll only have a single heir, that's a lot of incentive to do this right."

"Jen's illegitimate, and she doesn't seem to have it bad," groused Luna.

Well, she really wasn't, but Jen would rather be considered a bastard than have people know she had once been the legitimate heir to House Potter. A status for which, by law and blood, she no longer qualified, anyway. "Several Houses, the Neutrals especially, are undecided about what to do with her for that very reason," Tracey admitted. "Of course, it helps that the ones who would give her the most grief are scared of her, which is a big reason why she's escaped the worst of the drawbacks."

"Scared of her? Why?"

"Because no matter how well we know her, she's still terrifying." Luna looked at her dubiously, so she started counting off on her fingers. "Her first time in the public eye, she killed a dragon with another dragon. Then she dueled people three years older than her and won. When it came out that she is a bastard, it also came out that her mother is none other than Bellatrix Lestrange, who people still say was as powerful and skilled in a fight as she is crazy. And  _then_  she went through Hogsmeade hunting down werewolves and fighting You-Know-Who to a standstill singlehandedly." A grim smile appeared on her face. "It might not have been in the  _Prophet_ , but the Slytherin second-years she saved who were hiding in the Shrieking Shack? They're all children of Noble or Most Noble Houses, and I can only guess they sang Jen's praises all summer long, because it definitely made the rounds of the Wizengamot. Put all that together, and anyone who would blatantly look down on her is scared she'd come after them if they tried it.

"Anyway, giving her kid the protection from their peers that she's literally had to fight for is one reason Jen might be okay with an arranged marriage. The second is to prove her place in her family. How much do we know about Jen's life before Lord Black found her?"

A furrow grew between Luna's eyebrows as her face scrunched up in thought. "Not a lot."

"Not a lot at all. Isn't it strange that we know basically nothing about the nine years between her foster family abandoning her and her rejoining the Black family?" She shook her head. "I don't know about you, but I don't like the kind of things that implies. Sure, I might be overthinking it, but if her life before truly becoming Jen Black was that bad, she might be willing to go through with an arranged marriage because it proves beyond all doubt that she's grateful to them for finding her and that they made the right decision when they did so. Maybe she's scared it could be taken away again, too. I don't know for sure, but there's no way I'm going to ask her if that's the case."

Her words hung in the air for a few moments, and she looked back at Malfoy before Luna spoke once again. "What's the third?"

"What?"

"You said there were three reasons Jen might be okay with an arranged marriage, but that was the second one. What's the third?"

"Oh." The first and second were obvious, but the third one was a little more tenuous, at least with the information she knew Luna had and without the information only she knew, like the truth behind her grandfather's death. It was also the most damaging toward Jen. She took a second to decide whether or not she wanted to explain it. "The third, well… Jen just doesn't think like normal people do. I don't know whether it's the result of where she lived before or her encounter with the 'trolls' or what, but her mind works differently than ours. That's the whole reason you and Jen had your fight in the first place, right? You were looking at your relationship and sex in different ways. Combine that with her bent for politics…" Tracey trailed off and shrugged. There did seem to be at least one suitor Jen was sweet on if her reaction to the overdone letter was any indication, but perhaps it would be better for both of them if Luna believed for the moment that Jen was ignoring the marriage half of the process in favor of the political aspects.

Her good deed done for the day, she turned her attention back to the store just in time to see a head of bright red hair vanish inside. Nearly giving herself a pair of black eyes when she jerked the field glasses back to her face, she let out a short laugh. "Malfoy's more bored than I thought if he's taunting the little Weasley."

"That was Ginny?" The brunette handed over her glasses, and Luna peered into the store intently. "What are they saying?"

"I might know if I could see better," she shot back, "but knowing Malfoy, it's nothing good. He's always hated the Weasleys, and the one in our year especially. I'm wondering what she's doing there at all, though. Just looking at the clothes on display, I doubt her family could afford her shopping there. Unless she wanted to be sure of what they cost?"

"Huh." Luna returned the lenses, and she peered through them just in time to see Malfoy settle back in his chair while the attendant led Weasley away. Not to the door like she would have expected, though, but instead to the racks. Even though Weasley eventually talked the older witch into focusing their attention on a second group of clothes that were not quite that extravagant, she still slipped into the changing rooms with several selections that together were more than even Tracey would have been comfortable purchasing on a whim.

A couple of minutes later, Weasley came out— And yes, the world had definitely stopped making sense, because now Weasley was modeling the dress for Malfoy, who actually seemed to be paying attention and enjoying the show.

"Do you think this was the reason behind all his strange behavior?" Luna asked slowly. "That it was just because Ginny and Malfoy secretly fancy each other?"

"It… might be?" was her weak reply. "It would explain why he's been skulking about so much. His family and the Weasleys have hated each other for the last few generations. If he wanted to get together with the daughter of his father's mortal enemy, it would be something he couldn't afford anyone else finding out about and relaying to Daddy Dearest. Same with Weasley and the Gryffindors. Both of them would have to make sure no one got a whiff of this."

The blonde gave her a tentative smile. "True love conquers all?"

"I guess so." She looked at the apparent couple again. "I really can't think of anything else it could be." The answer to that mystery revealed, and one that was far less interesting than she thought it would be, she gave Luna a shrug. "So… What do you want to do now?"

* * *

Music pounded below her, and Jen narrowed her eyes at the throngs of people dancing to the beat. The more she thought about this plan, the worse it sounded, but what could she do about it now? The stage was set, the cast in position. All waited for the rising of the curtain, and then, at long last, the show could start. Only once it was begun could it end.

Lifting her right hand to her head, she spoke to the small wooden disc tied to her wrist. "Are you in position?"

" _We are ready to begin whenever you are, Queen,"_ Priest's calm voice replied, and she glanced over to a low balcony where several businessmen loitered. It was the one location where the wizard's garb would not be considered out of place.

Her eyes moved across the square to the opposite side and landed on a figure outfitted with a long red robe and a mask of the same color. If anyone was going to dress herself as the Red Death, it really should be Jen, but unfortunately she needed to be distinctive while the more experienced black mages blended into the crowd. That meant it was Menagerie who instead got to dress up as Jen's own patron.  _"Just get on with it already,"_  the prickly life alchemist demanded.

Jen rolled her eyes and turned away from the party spilling out over what looked to be the entirety of the South Bank, her black trousers and hooded jacket blending in with the darkened sky and the Unspeakables' disguising charm hiding her face. Tonight was Halloween: a day of darkness, a night of power. She should be working some grand magic the way she had the previous year, or even just enjoying the celebrations of the Muggles below, but instead she had to look at a couple of rotting bodies.

This was the bait she had planted almost two weeks ago. Immediately following her date during the Edinburgh weekend, she had gone back to Priest and Menagerie's hideout to check on the more experienced hunters' progress, and to her disappointment but not surprise, they had been unsuccessful. Without some way to narrow down the search area, they were looking for one person in a city of nearly seven million, and that just was not feasible.

It was actually Menagerie who had come up with this alternative. Instead of looking for the white wizard, they would make him come to them. Several of the more experienced avatars of the Light had means by which to detect black magic being performed in their vicinity, the Greek witch had said, and so all they needed to do was use some to lure him in. Since she was the one he was looking for, it needed to be her who used the magic.

The bodies lay together inside a circle, one's head facing the other's feet, and though two weeks were enough for their bodies to start bloating and their skin to slough off, she could still identify them as the couple she had kidnapped from the nearby King's College campus and murdered here on this otherwise unremarkable roof. Other than the Baron's cross and a trio of fehu runes, the circle was empty; she had not wanted to use the power their deaths would provide, just capture it for a later time.

That time had now arrived. Dragging her foot through the circle, she scuffed the line and broke the circle's magic. The space within snapped back into her senses, no longer being held between the mortal plane and Death's realm, and when it returned, it brought the power of the Labyrinth with it. Ice sprayed out along the roof from the center of the circle, and the accompanying pulse of magic was so strong it almost physically pushed her away.

If the white wizard was anywhere nearby, there was no way he could have not felt that.

A minute passed, then two. Was he coming or not? She glanced again at her allies, wondering if they had noticed something she missed or, frightening as it was to consider, if they had been taken out to leave her alone, but they looked to be just as tense as she was. Or perhaps was the white wizard simply out of range of that pulse—

A crack sounded behind her, and she threw herself forwards, her feet skidding on the ice her bait had created. Spinning around, she at long last saw her foe. A white robe hid most of his small frame, though the open hood revealed his skin to be the golden-brown of the Middle East. Middle-aged, too, a little older than Priest, and if she had to guess, she would place him in his seventies, maybe early eighties. That was a dangerous age for a wizard; he would still have the majority of his physical abilities, his body only just now starting to lose its strength, but that loss would be tempered by all the experience he had accumulated over the years.

Thank the Baron she had Priest and Menagerie backing her up. She did not think she could fight this guy by herself and have any hopes of winning.

"You are the black witch my Lord commanded me to kill," he pronounced ominously.

"I'd say I'm not, but I don't think you'd believe me."

"No, I wouldn't." He sighed, and inexplicably his expression softened. "But just because He demands your death does not mean it needs to be terrible. Please, just surrender. I give you my word, your passing will be swift and completely painless, and I will return you to your family so you may be properly buried."

That was a strange offer – plea? – and she needed a moment to put her train of thought back on its rails. To make matters even stranger, the white wizard had not moved to attack while she was distracted. "I… appreciate the offer," she finally replied, "but I would much prefer to live. I'd give you the same chance, but I don't think you'd take it, either."

"So in the end, we still must fight and bleed for no purpose," he sighed. When he raised his head to look at her again, his eyes were hard and all mercy had left his stance. "So be it."

A flick of his hand showed him to be devoid of wand, but the lack of focus did not prevent a bolt of lightning from flashing across the space between them to smash into an earthen wall she had conjured at the last second. A frisson of fear swept down her spine. Wandless magic and unlimited spellcasting were advantages she had always enjoyed over her opponents; her entire fighting style was based on them. This was without a doubt the worst possible enemy for her. No wonder Marduk had been the Power to send his soldier after her.

She thrust both her palms at the wall. With her left, she slammed an overpowered banishing charm to shatter it into tiny fragments and send them at him, and with her right, she laid a spell on the cloud of shards. The swarm reached the wizard only to be swept away by a sudden gust of wind. The rubble collided with the building next to them, and the wizard swung his head involuntarily when the blasting curses she had charmed each piece with made the entire wall explode; below them, the celebration screeched to a halt and the partygoers started screaming in fright. That diversion was enough for her to throw her own thunderbolt at him.

Then she cursed when it immediately reversed directions to hurtle back at her.

 _Stupid!_ , she shouted at herself while conjuring a chunk of metal to take the hit for her. She had looked up Marduk's magics shortly after finding out that the other black mages could not find the wizard, but lightning was one of her favorite attacks. She had cast before considering that giving an elementalist yet more magic to work with was a terrible idea.

A crescent of wind, scorching hot with white magic, sliced through the lump of titanium and just barely missed her left arm. Throwing the two halves at him and following them up with a rain of needles, she frowned thoughtfully when she saw that he had not created a wall to protect him as she expected. A sphere of water, wide as he was tall, collapsed to the rooftop along with the titanium so he could blow away her needles with yet more wind. Taking a chance, she hurled an utterly unremarkable fireball at the wizard, and rather than reflect it as he had the lightning, he pulled up some of the water he had previously conjured to douse the flames.

A brace of pale green curses flew at the wizard and to his right, forcing him to dodge to the left and then throw another glob of water at the spear of molten copper coming his way. So it was not true elementalism, which made sense now that she thought about it. Marduk was worshipped in Babylon as a god, specifically the god of magic and storms. His avatars could attack with all the powers of a thunderstorm, but more importantly  _only_  a thunderstorm.

Magic washed over her, and a smile broke free. Took them long enough. The wizard seemed to realize something was amiss, as well, and she flung herself off the building just ahead of the blast of wind that swept over the entirety of the roof. A twist of her wrist to cast her flight spell, and she soared above their battlefield in time to see the rooftop explode underneath his feet and a wickedly curved sword try to separate his head from his shoulders.

Priest leapt out of the hole he had made, scimitar in his left hand and wand in his right, and for the first time his coat was open and flapping behind him. Jen was no swordswoman to judge Priest's skills, but the black wizard was good enough that he could deflect the arcs of electricity and slip his blade between the bubbles of water the Stormrider summoned to protect himself. The wand in his off-hand stayed mostly silent, only a few curses lashing out at the building beneath the white wizard's feet to keep the interloper on the move. A swift movement to one side caught her attention, and with a nasty grin, she sliced her hand through the air. That corner of the building crumbled, dropping the white wizard down into a pit that was at the same level as its neighbor and therefore the perfect height for an antlered wolf and a winged viper to pounce upon him.

With Menagerie's creatures now joining the fray, she did not have a clear shot at the wizard, so she took a moment just to watch the fight play out. Unfortunately, what she saw was not comforting. A handful of lightning caught the wolf full in the face, and then a sharp wind whirled around and around, slicing the occamy into five or six sections. A third monstrosity, this one the size and general shape of a bull but with six legs and chitinous plating like a pillbug, stomped across the roof and ignored the lightning and wind when it slammed headfirst into their enemy. It was then summarily blasted back and into the opposite wall, and now a dome of swirling air surrounded the wizard.

Magic spun and wove together around Jen, her net growing larger and larger as she gathered her power and the spell in mind already transforming the energy. It was not much, but by the time the white wizard regained his feet and looked up at her, a speckling of embers orbited her. Priest dropped on top of him, but a gust of wind threw the African wizard away. The white wizard spun on his heel in a clear attempt to teleport away and stiffened in shock when he did not immediately vanish, and then, in a move born of obvious desperation, he leapt to the ground.

Too bad; he should have tried that sooner. Slamming the web together in a knot in front of her, Jen released the spell she had built up in the lull. A torrent of flame, infused with dark magic by the rage she had threaded through the spell, sprayed out at the wizard, and from the other side not one but six occamies dived down and moved to flank him. He would not be able to protect himself on both fronts, and once Priest was back in the fight, he surely would make a fatal mistake.

It was over, even if the white wizard was still technically alive. When the black mages had decided on this plan, they knew the white wizard would try to escape once he knew he was outnumbered. Since they needed him to get close so they could ambush him, they could not go through the long and tedious process of carving and powering runes for a true ward around the entire South Bank, but neither could they guarantee that the battle would stay in one place, so casting a paling – the shorter-lived cousin of a ward, but a spell that was far faster to set in place – that would prevent Apparation only over the building on top of which Jen had made her sacrifices was a waste of magic, as would be trying to cover just the surrounding buildings. The core of even an incredibly powerful witch could only sustain a few such spells at a time, and while Jen did not have to worry about overtaxing a core as she no longer had one, her body could still only channel so much magic before spontaneously combusting.

Thankfully, there was a trick to get around such size limitations. All they needed was a few days for Priest and Menagerie to walk around the area and create a scale model of the South Bank, and once she had launched her attacks to signal the pair that the white wizard had arrived, Menagerie had cast the paling over the model. Since it was an exact duplicate, updated just that afternoon with the decorations strewn about for the party, the laws of sympathetic magic meant a similar defense had come into existence over the actual South Bank. They had, in essence, tricked the world's magic into thinking that there was supposed to be a ward over the area, and the planet had made sure to correct that discrepancy.

Priest had actually recognized what she intended about halfway through her explanation, and he had complimented her on her knowledge of the kind of magic that was generally looked down upon as the recourse of the weak and untrained. She could not take sole credit for it, however; Elsie had taught it to her as an emergency measure, a tool to keep up her sleeve even if she never had need for it with her effectively infinite reserves. The old Haitian had been right yet again, and Jen knew that if Elsie were alive to hear it, she would be insufferable.

A cloud of steam exploded into existence from beneath her flames, but rather than rise as it normally would, it was funneled down the alley in both directions. Jen released the spell and instead fired a barrage of Killing Curses at the mouth of the alleyway and worked her way backwards. There was no way the white wizard had moved through that fire, and even with water at his beck and call, the spot where she had unleashed her fury was still far too hot for a normal human to cross and too tainted by dark magic for a white wizard to approach. Despite her surety, the steam – no, the  _fog_ ; yet another weather effect – billowed out into the square and kept spreading, the intent behind the spell clear. There would be no way to find him in all this, and by the time they did figure out where he was, he would have removed his robe and blended back in with the fleeing Muggles.

Moving over to the previous building, she landed gently on the rooftop and walked over to the crater she had created. "Need some help getting up?" she called down.

"That would be appreciated."

She grinned a little and summoned Priest to where she stood, but her smile slipped away when she saw him. "By the Baron. Your arm."

"Hm? Oh." Priest bent his elbow to examine the stump that was all that remained of his right forearm. A few centimeters from the elbow, the skin and muscle were torn into ragged strips, and in the very center protruded a little bit of bone. Shockingly, blood was not spurting from the mangled end; it looked completely dry, in fact, almost plastic. "Yes, that last attack was a little more destructive than I thought it would be. To be expected of the Turk, I suppose, and I would much rather lose an arm than a chunk of my chest, but irritating nonetheless."

"And it was white magic," she whispered. Wounds inflicted by dark magic could only be repaired by dark magic, or else it would have to heal naturally and be replaced by ugly scar tissue and lose much of its function in the process. This was fairly common knowledge, but what most witches did not know was that if they were injured by light magic, admittedly a far rarer occurrence, the same rules applied. Being black mages, none of them could cast light magic spells, and that meant there was nothing that could be done for Priest's arm. This was only the first engagement, and already one of them had been crippled.

"Like I said, irritating." Using the point of his scimitar, he moved the right side of his coat away to reveal a shoulder harness hidden underneath and slid the sword into the demonstrably space-extended holster. He then pulled out a second wand sitting inside that same holster and waved it over his right arm.

The stump of his arm, severed above the elbow, landed on the rooftop with a soft thud.

Glancing at her wide eyes, Priest chuckled. "Your concern is appreciated, but it truly is not necessary. With the right potion, spells, and a fresh body, I can replace my arm without difficulty. I am actually more displeased with the loss of the wand I was using. I have very few hazel wands in my collection, and of them all, that was the one best-matched to me."

A heavy impact sounded from the rear of the building, and Jen looked over to find a bone-plated gorilla climbing up onto the roof. Menagerie swung off his back and walked over, shaking her head when she saw Priest's arm. "Again? If you can't keep your body intact on your own, why should I keep helping you put yourself back together again?"

"Perhaps if you had gotten here a little sooner, that wouldn't have been an issue," Jen shot back as she raked her eyes over the other witch's idea of combat garb. A sports bra, tiny shorts, high-top trainers, and a dozen necklaces and talismans? Really? "You do know the whole 'chainmail bikini' thing doesn't actually protect you, right?"

"Do you have a problem with what I'm wearing?"

"I literally worked on my back in a whorehouse, and even I think you need to put more clothes on."

Menagerie crossed her arms and glared back at Jen. "I don't wear this because I like it. I wear it because it's practical."

"You seriously think that's practical?" Jen mocked.

A snicker came from Priest, and as if that were the signal they were waiting for, the antlered wolf and the flock of occamies made their way over. The winged snakes tangled themselves together and merged back into one creature, and then both monsters became distorted and monochromatic. Once the serpent wrapped itself around Menagerie's left upper arm and the wolf pressed its face onto the right side of her belly, they were sucked up and into the witch's skin, the only sign of their existence the tattoos that appeared where they touched her. "Yes," replied Menagerie in the most condescending voice possible, her tattoos – her chimeric minions – shifting around on her flesh, "I think it's extremely practical. I got tired of replacing my clothes every time I let my babies loose to play."

"Suddenly your name makes a lot more sense," she muttered. Menagerie's body was completely covered in drawings. Just how many creatures did she have at hand? "Explains your hair, too. Make people think you're just another punk, and no one pays much attention to your ink."

"Do not let Menagerie's appearances or attitude deceive you," Priest rumbled in amusement. "I would not work alongside her if she were weak or foolish. Of all possible weapons, the greatest is a harmless appearance."

She nodded in understanding. "All right. Now that that's sorted out, would someone like to explain just how this Turk could use white magic now, during the Dark Power's time of the year?"

"You are referring to rebound, I take it?" the wizard asked. "That phenomenon does not affect all higher magics, just those bound in ritual. The gifts of the Gatekeeper and the Grand Wyrm," he explained, nodding at Jen and Menagerie in turn, "as well as those of the Wild Huntress, the Earth-Mother, and the Beautiful One. For the rest of us, rebound is only a danger if we truly push the boundaries of what we can do. Our magics might not be as broad in scope as yours, but they are more reliable in the heat of the moment."

Jen snarled and turned away. Elsie had always, always pounded into her skull the dangers of working black magic at the wrong time, and now to hear that only five of the fourteen Powers gave magics that held the risks of rebound? It rankled, and maybe also explained why Elsie was willing to take the chance of angering the Baron and try switching her allegiance to Nyarlathotep. She sighed, banking her emotions for a later, more useful time. If nothing else, she now knew she needed not to be overconfident if she ever encountered another white mage in what was supposed to be the Dark's half of the year, and also to be sure to kill off any avatars of Holda or Tiferet she ran across the first time. The last thing she needed was to let one of them escape and subsequently suffer because they whipped up something she was unprepared for.

She knew firsthand the power and usefulness of rituals, and she knew that a little imagination and sufficient resources were all that were needed to give someone a very bad day.

"We may not have won this confrontation, but neither did we lose," continued Priest, pulling her from her ruminations. "More importantly, we have stripped away the Turk's anonymity. We have fought him many times, Menagerie and I, and while I do not claim to know all his tricks, we are familiar with many and know how to survive them. Truly, we are his worst opponents. Unfortunately, he knows us in return, and it is that familiarity that has allowed him to escape us for so long. This simplistic a trap will not work on him a second time.

"No, now we will have to get creative."

* * *

**In case you were wondering, Tracey's locator charm measures distances in 7½-inch increments and displays the result in hexadecimal format. Why would I do that? Because I was bored.**

**Some of Luna's complaints were fleshed out by a short discussion I had on the subject with Selacha. The idea for Tracey and Luna to misinterpret Malfoy and Ginny's outing as a secret date, on the other hand, is a twisted reflection of a thought fireball900 had when reviewing chapter 10.**

**The more I write Priest and Menagerie, the more they** _**terrify** _ **me. How fucked up does my brain have to be to come up with these characters?!**

**Silently Watches out.**


	14. The Labyrinth

" **I don't know; Priest and Menagerie don't seem so bad just yet":**  Ha, ha. Oh, boy, just wait. You'll see what I mean soon enough…

**Finally! I've been waiting to get to this point in the story for the last** _**three years** _ **. The second scene I've had planned out since before I even finished with** _**Princess of the Blacks** _ **. …In hindsight, I might have had a little too much fun writing all this.**

**Disclaimer:**  Since Voldemort wouldn't know that the Vanishing Cabinet had been moved to the Room of Requirement after Montague was freed from within and a 'proper' Pureblood would never deign to speak with a house-elf as an equal, was it ever explained just how Draco Malfoy knew to look for it in the Room in book 6? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 14  
** **The Labyrinth**

Touching the letter stuffed in her pocket, Jen glanced over at her companion. "You're sure about this?"

"I honor my debts," the gravely voice replied. Peering back at her with misty eyes, the Bloody Baron continued, "I pledged you one favor for what you did to help Cuthbert, and I shall deliver. If you require a place in which to ply your dark crafts in secrecy, I shall guide you to it."

She frowned and followed the Slytherin house ghost. The previous year, she had met with the council formed by the four house ghosts – and what a surprise that had been, considering no one else knew that such a council existed in the first place – and had liberated Cuthbert Binns, the spectral History professor whom Dolores Umbridge had replaced, from his ties to the living world via the expedient route of just killing him a second time. Since she refused on principle to work for anyone for free, she had bargained with the ghosts for her recompense, namely a favor from the council as a whole, another from the Bloody Baron individually, and an interview with the assumed-mute Grey Lady. The conversation with Ravenclaw house's ghost and their founder's daughter had gone fantastically, but she had hoped to keep her favors in reserve for when she really needed them.

Unfortunately, the damn Turk had made that an impossibility.

Priest had sent her a letter almost a week before informing her that after their moderately successful ambush on the white wizard on Halloween night, he had disappeared yet again, and now even splanchomancy was giving nonsensical results. Considering the older black mage had told her that form of divination was extremely difficult to truly retard, this news was unwelcome, indeed. For the next few days, she had been worried that that might be the end of it. She could admit the truth to herself: Priest and Menagerie both had far more experience dealing with white mages in general and this one in particular than she did, along with a plethora of clairvoyant divination techniques more advanced than her own scrying. What advantage did she have that her senior allies did not?

It was only when she sat down to continue her studies for the Dark Arts Proficiency Exam that she found the solution. If divination would not work to find the Turk, they needed to try a manner of searching other than divination. They needed to put another pair of eyes in the town, a pair that could wander around without being noticed by the Muggles and could report back to them about what it found.

A pair of eyes that was not necessarily of the mortal plane.

Black witch and spirit stopped in front of an abandoned stretch of corridor on the seventh floor, the emptiness broken only by a single, non-animated portrait of a wizard surrounded by a group of trolls wearing tutus. Abandoned to the eyes, that was; through her sonar, Jen could feel a ripple in the middle of the wall, as if there were something that wanted to come into reality but was being held back. "There are two methods by which to access this room," the Bloody Baron explained. "The first is to pace before this portrait three times whilst thinking of that which you need. The room will transfigure itself into a form that best fits your desires. The second is to use a password, which calls forth the true, but far less protean, form of the room."

"And what is that password?" she challenged.

" _Gwybodaeth ddiddiwedd_."

She pursed her lips as the wall warped and bulged outwards, finally revealing the arched door that had been hiding behind the stones. For all that she had lived most of her life in Cardiff and Avryporth, she was far more fluent in Haitian Creole than she was in Welsh, but she had picked up a few words here and there from the older witches and wizards who came to Elsie for help. "Endless knowledge?"

"Correct. The Lady Ravenclaw believed that learning was a never-ending road, that knowledge merely birthed yet more knowledge. She designed her study with this in mind."

"Ravenclaw's study?" she repeated in shock. Surely she had misheard him.

"Indeed. Did you think my master's Chamber was the only hidden area inside Hogwarts? Each Founder had their own private place, somewhere where they might be alone with their personal research and experiments." The ghost shook his head and rattled out a sigh. "Sadly, with the passing of time they have all been forgotten. The Chamber was rejected as myth and now is inaccessible, the Study has been claimed by the house-elves as an infinite storage room, Helga's Tower in the Forest has collapsed, and Gryffindor's Armory was looked upon as a mere curiosity and emptied of all its treasures supposedly in the name of 'protecting the students'. The last personal effects of the four greatest wizards and witches of all time, treated like rubbish."

That was sad, even to Jen's mind, and she could only imagine what it would be like to someone who had lived and trained under the Founders. If she discovered that someone had destroyed the legacy of House Black, ghost or not, she would do whatever necessary to make that person's life a living hell. " _'Greatest wizards and witches of all time_ '?" she echoed, hoping to lighten the Bloody Baron's understandably dark mood. It was the least she could do considering the lost history he had revealed. "Greater even than Merlin? That's quite a claim."

"Merlin's grand experiment failed upon the death of its first king, not thirty years after its inception. But Hogwarts?" He waved a translucent hand around the corridor. "A thousand years, and still it thrives. Yes, the Founders were far more impressive than Merlin."

She had little to say to that, and so they stood in silence for a long moment before the Bloody Baron turned his back to her and began drifting away. "My debt to you now is paid. I bid you  _adieu_."

Ignoring the curt goodbye, Jen grabbed the handle of the door and pushed. No point standing around when there was work to do and time was constantly slipping past.

If Ravenclaw's study was any indication, the woman who founded the house of the intelligent had fantastic tastes. Tiles of polished slate made up the floor, and on three edges of the wide-open space were rows of bookshelves. There were hundreds of books here; not as many as the school's library possessed, nowhere close, but as many or maybe a few more than were inside the library at Grimmauld Place. And unlike the Blacks' or Hogwarts's libraries, these books had belonged to one of the Founders. Even if she found only one or two journals that the woman had written personally, it would still be a rare and incredible find.

She sighed as she tore her eyes from the shelves and dropped her satchel onto the ground. She was not here to gawk like a tourist. Pulling a few sticks of chalk from a pocket, she guided them with her magic to draw out a large, lopsided, eight-pointed star on the floor. For her Evocation to work, she needed to 'aim' her signal toward the correct neighboring plane, and as with many things, symbols were one of the easiest methods. Once the summoning sigil was complete, she added a complicated design around it that looked almost like a piece of Celtic knotwork. These were the barriers that would protect her should she mess up her call and accidentally bring forth something more dangerous than she could deal with, and while they would not last long, it should delay the creature for a few necessary seconds.

While her magic was tracing the design in her mind, her hands had been busy, too. On her right hand was a roughly written symbol that, while laid out in ink on flesh rather than imprinted in clay, looked a great deal like the cuneiform character for 'slave-owner'. That similarity was furthered by the string of symbols that ran halfway down that arm. This was her greatest defense if something went terribly wrong: the dominion seal, which would grant her total control over her summoned creature. It would not last long, especially if she somehow managed to Evoke a truly powerful entity, but all she really needed it for was to force the creature to return to its place of origin, preferably quickly enough that it could not break free from her grasp and rend her to pieces.

Now that she thought about it, perhaps Evocation was not as wonderful a field of magic as she first thought.

All that said, however, she was hoping not to need to resort to any of her contingency plans. Those were only if things went wrong. If everything went how she expected, she would not have to resort to anything; she would Evoke her creature, tell it what she wanted, and it would agree to her terms. Everything nice and neat and nonfatal.

Looking over the drawing one last time, she pulled her pocket watch from her pocket and checked the time. The sigil would direct her call to the appropriate plane, and the aria she planned to recite would determine which species answered her call, but it was the position of the planets that would select the individual, or at least a small group of individuals. As time passed, the pool of candidates would change, and the risk of summoning something whose personality ran counter to her intentions increased tremendously. That was the entire reason she was off by herself on a Sunday evening when she could be spending her time with her friends or fingering her girlfriend into a satiated puddle. With the type of creature she was inviting to the castle, even a small mistake should not be too bad, but an easily corrected mistake was still a waste of time.

Watch returned to its pocket, she carefully stepped into the sigil and set down a small jar of honey and a full-grown mandrake. The humanoid root squirmed and tried to scream, but the heavy cotton stitches she had used to tie its mouth closed kept it from unleashing its lethal cry. Jen left the circle, checked her script once more, and sang in a low, soft voice.

" _Under shrub and through the thistle,  
_ _Where the winds all sing and whistle,  
_ _I bid you hence, to see your face  
_ _And show to you a bright new race._

" _By the sixth house—"_

A flash of golden light and grasping shadow exploded from a point above the sigil, and Jen shouted in surprise when a blast of winter wind accompanied it. This was wrong, and extremely so; the realm she had aimed for was said to dwell in eternal summer! Pointing her palm at the middle of the space, she watched as the steam issuing from the sublimating ice that coated the floor slowly began to clear. The seconds ticked by, and the symbols painted on her skin started to tingle and then burn from the magic running through them. She had one shot at dominating whatever had come for her, but thanks to the open bridge between worlds, she could not feel the space around the sigil with her sonar. She would have to use her eyes, but the longer she waited, the greater the chance whatever this was would break through her defenses.

"Put that away, girl, before you embarrass yourself."

"…the hell?" Still, her hand fell from its guarding position, and the wasted seal flaked off her skin. She  _knew_  that voice, knew it almost as well as her own, and even if she could have forgotten the voice in such a short time, the accent was distinctive. "Elsie?"

The smoke finally cleared to reveal the form of her old mentor. Honestly, had Elsie walked up to her on the street, Jen would have spotted nothing amiss; she was a small woman, back stooped with age, and only through her sonar would Jen have any hint that the Haitian witch was one of the most despicable examples of humanity she had ever met, herself included. Over her 170 years of life, the elder black witch had amassed a body count that undoubtedly numbered into the thousands. And yet, for all her cruelty, Elsie still smirked at her old pupil. "Hello, Jen. However did you heal your eyes?"

"With the help of a renowned Potions Master. He was impressed with my Thickening Solution," she answered, shocked at the strange turn this conversation had taken from the very start. "Now, a better question; how are you here? The last I knew, you were… well, torn apart and rotting away in the blink of an eye."

The old woman glanced away momentarily, a telling sign of her discomfort if there ever was one. "The Baron noticed you performing this calling and took the opportunity to… send you a message."

"If he wanted to tell me something, I'd expect him to yank me into his realm while I dreamed like the last few times," she retorted.

Shuddering, Elsie disparagingly muttered, "After everything I taught you, to think you would speak so casually of conversing with the Baron. You have become a fool in my absence."

"A fool?" Jen repeated mockingly. "No. He just likes me more than he does you. I never attempted to betray Death by splitting my soul, after all. Maybe if you had listened when I told you you were being a bloody moron, you'd still be alive yourself.  _You_  were the one who told me what happens to those who earn the Baron's wrath. Whatever torments he has subjected you to in the four years since are of your own making.

"But that is all irrelevant," she said with a shake of her head. If someone had asked her how she thought a reunion between her and Elsie would go, this would not have been her expectation, but she supposed it should not be that great a surprise. As her mentor's actions had proved, there were some fundamental differences between them that were far more evident now than there had been when she was still just the student. "What I want to know is how he hijacked my Evocation. It was not aimed anywhere near the Labyrinth."

"He used the shreds of his own magic that were present in the summoning to take control." At her surprised expression – the Baron's magic? She had not used any black magic in this! – Elsie gave her a superior smirk that rapidly faded, the dark-skinned woman's face paling dramatically. "We may have been born as nothing more than unremarkable humans, but we both are Death's creatures now. His power runs through you always, trickling in from the connection to your Death Focus as well as from the mark you bear."

The fingers of Jen's right hand found her left wrist and laid themselves on top of the scar she had carved into her flesh with her dagger over many years of practicing Voodoo. During her most recent ritual, when she brought together the soul jars Voldemort had created in an attempt to live forever, she had borne the Baron's mantle for the second time in her life and had cut herself far deeper than she ever would have had her mind been free of external influence. The last vestiges of that cruel power had healed the wound, but in return its ends were now capped by the flower-like designs that projected off the Baron's veve.

She knew her scar was unusual, but not that it served as a second connection to Death!

"So only the Baron can take control of my Evocations. That's comforting." She was only being a little sarcastic; compared to the other possibilities, among them that any Power could send her a beastie or two, it really was a bit of a relief. "You said he sent you to me with a message. What is it?"

Elsie gave her a cold glance. "Because you have entertained him so thoroughly, he has granted your voice weight with the beasts that lurk in the shadows of his realm. Hellhounds, nightmares, camazotz; all will come at your command, though that is no guarantee that they will serve you. You have the authority to call upon them, but show weakness but a little and they will turn on you."

Hellhounds, nightmares, and camazotz? She would need to do some reading to know exactly what those beasts were, though with hellhounds, she had a guess. The first thing her mind leapt to was cŵn annwn, but she knew those red-eared, white-furred hounds belonged to Perchta. More likely, they were the omens of death the witches of Britain knew as Grim. That… opened a number of interesting possibilities. "And you? Can I summon you for a chat whenever I want?"

"No. The Baron has permitted me this single trip back to this world for the sole reason that even with his magic threaded through your summoning, the Pact between the Powers prevents him from making the journey himself. Should you try to summon me, you would lose that favor you are so proud of yourself for earning." Elsie raised her chin defiantly, as if she were taunting Jen to try just that.

Not that she was going to take such obvious bait. "Earning the Baron's favor at only sixteen? I have every right to be proud of myself. It is more than I think you ever accomplished." Raising her hand to forestall Elsie's rebuttal, she demanded, "Is there anything else to your message, or was that all you had to say?"

Scowling at her, Elsie ground out, "That was all. You are fortunate that I am forbidden from acting of my own accord here, girl, or I would break these bindings and choke the life out of you for your arrogance."

"What can I say? All my worst traits, I learned from you." Jen shook her head. "I still have things to do, and unlike you, I have limited time in which to do them. Go away, Elsie. I will see you again when I die, I'm sure, but if I have my way, that won't be for a good century yet."

The elder black witch opened her mouth to respond, but a freezing wind roared between them and whipped away her words. Jen had to avert her eyes to protect them from the unnatural cold, and when it ended, the sigil was once again empty.

Thankfully, her enticements were still where she had left them, and while she was surprised there was no frost covering them, she was not going to look askance at good fortune. Her window of opportunity was starting to close, however, so forcing her musings on the Baron's latest 'gift' to the back of her mind, she quickly painted the dominion seal over her arm and tried her aria once again.

" _Under shrub and through the thistle,  
_ _Where the winds all sing and whistle,  
_ _I bid you hence, to see your face  
_ _And show to you a bright new race._

" _By the sixth house I bind you near,  
_ _Under sun and moon, Venus, Mars,  
_ _Merc'ry and Pluto, serve you here.  
_ _The ninth house is where you excel,  
_ _Uranus, Neptune both do tell._

" _Come to me. I command you run.  
_ _A contract forged 'tween one and one.  
_ _True it is, pooka e'er seek fun."_

Again there came the burst of gold and black, but this time the light from crossing between realms was fainter. Blinking away the purple spots dotting her vision, she stared with excitement at the black, lop-eared bunny that sat inside the circle snuffling at the mandrake.

It had worked.

Someone who did not know all the details of Evocation might have been surprised by her glee, but this was no earthly rabbit. It was a pooka, a mischievous but generally benign shapeshifter that was often erroneously classified as a species of fae. Because of their peaceful natures, a pooka was not the obvious choice of creature to conjure up when she could have called forth an imp or a minor qarin to aid her in her hunt for the Turk, but it was also far less likely to go on a random spree of violence should it grow bored. Furthermore, had her summoning only mostly worked, it likely would have brought forth a different type of creature with a similar demeanor, and for some reason that no one had ever been able to explain conclusively, violence and cruelty often went hand-in-hand with a resistance to domination.

The bunny turned its face to her, displaying the patch of bluish-grey fur around its left eye, and a soft whisper could be just barely heard beside Jen's ear.  _He is curious. He wants to know why I've summoned him here_.

Her eyes widened as she repeated that thought in her mind. There was no way she would know what gender this pooka was, nor could she know what it wanted when it was in the form of a rabbit. Now that she focused on 'her' thought, she could hear a difference in the 'sound' of the voice, a flatness that her mental voice did not have. It was almost as though someone had recorded her speech and picked out individual words from which to create a new sentence.

She was tempted to slam down the defenses she had created to ward off Delacour's Allure, but eventually she mastered the urge. There was no guarantee that a mental shield against emotional manipulation would work on the pooka's magic the same way they had against the Lilin tricks Blaise and Stella Zabini had both used against her, and even if it did, it would leave her with no way to communicate effectively with this being. Steeling herself, she said, "I need your help. I have a little trick I want to play on somebody."

That caught the pooka's attention. Dragging its focus away from the struggling mandrake, it rose onto its hind legs and stared at her.

"There's a man who played a trick on me, and I want to return the favor." Waving her hand, she created a full-scale illusion of the Turk, and on the other side she conjured a larger copy of his head at eye-level with the rabbit. Thank the Baron he did not wear a mask, which meant his entire face was on display. "Unfortunately, I don't know where he lives. The town, yes, but there are lots of houses there, and I want to get him back before he forgets what he did. That's a long way from here, though. Do you think you could find him?"

 _Of course he can find this man_ , 'she' thought to herself.  _All he needs is a place to start looking. He has been dragged to this world enough that he's developed ways of finding people_.

"Excellent." Two more illusions appeared, these showing first London in relation to its neighbors and then a street-level view the general area around the Leaky Cauldron. Of all the places in London, this was one of the areas she could visualize best. She could have shown Grimmauld Place, but if he could be tracked, she would prefer the trail lead somewhere public rather than her home. "Is this enough, or do you need me to get more detail?"

Rather than answer, the pooka crouched next to the mandrake and opened its mouth wide. And then wider, to the point that much of the leporine neck was torn to reveal rough ridges of grey flesh. A multitude of whip-like tongues reached out and wrapped around the animate root, and though it squirmed as best it could, the mandrake slowly slid down the pooka's gullet in a single piece. Jen could only stare in shock even as the pooka did the same to the jar of honey and hopped over to sit next to her left foot, the protective knotwork worthless now that he had accepted her contract.

Swallowing slightly, Jen started thinking of how she could get this creature as far away from her as possible as soon as possible. Before she could pick the pooka up, however, the stones next to him shifted and began to crumble, a perfectly circular hole opening up and growing until there was enough space for two of the shapeshifter to squeeze through. The rabbit gave her a nod of appreciation and leapt into the tunnel, and as soon as he was out of sight, the hole shrank to nothingness.

"Well," she said after taking a moment to regain her wits, "that's filled my weirdness quota for the day." A wave of her hand vanished the chalk drawing, another did the same to her unused seal, and then, throwing the strap of her bag over her shoulder, she pulled the door open only to stare at the night sky waiting for her.

When closing the door and opening it once again did not change the scene, she sighed and stepped outside onto the top of what she now recognized as the Astronomy Tower. A single lantern burned in the middle of the platform, yielding just enough light to make out the details of the stone floor and trapdoor leading down into the castle just below it. Without warning, the door between Ravenclaw's study and the tower slammed shut, and Jen's hand slipped through the handle as the door fell apart into mist.

"I apologize for the surprise," a smooth woman's voice said. The black mage whirled around, magic pulsing angrily in her nerves, and her eyes landed on a glowing ripple that drifted in the air. That ripple curled up on itself and colors began spreading from it, and in a few seconds, there stood before her something strange. Not a person, for no living being was translucent like this, but the presence of color precluded the possibility that the woman in front of her was a ghost. Green dress, human-looking skin? Even with the white hair, there was no way she could be mistaken for a shade. "This was simply a most excellent opportunity in which to speak with you, and I was loath to let it slip from my grasp."

"Who are you?"

The only reaction the strange spirit-woman gave her was a small smile. "True, we have never met in person, but if you think back, you should recognize my voice."

Narrowing her eyes, Jen cautiously tried to place the voice. Now that it had been mentioned, it was vaguely familiar. Female, cultured, non-human, affiliated with Hogwarts… Oh. "You're the one the Sorting Hat called 'Lady Hogwarts', aren't you?"

The specter shared a small sigh. "Some do call me such, yes. But that is not my  _name_." Dropping into a deep curtsy, she purred, "It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Scion Black. I am Portia Slytherin, the spirit of this castle and school."

"The pleasure is mine. Jennifer Black, though my friends call me Jen," she replied, returning the curtsy. Hogwarts –  _Portia_  – smiled at her, and she had to ask, "When you call yourself 'Slytherin', I take it that you are not implying that Salazar sired a human daughter whose soul he bound to the castle."

"No, not at all. Truly, I am the… brainchild," Portia said with a grin, "of all four of this school's founders, but it was Salazar who crafted the runes and the wards, who turned an otherwise unremarkable manor house into a place of life and  _magic_. It was his desires and will that made up the majority of the seed that eventually sprouted to create me, and so it is he whom I choose to name my father."

"That eventually created you? If you weren't around during the Founders' time, how do you know Salazar did all you claim he did?"

"How do you know when to make your heart beat? How do you know how to move your arms and legs? How do you know how to keep your balance and not fall flat on your face when you take each step?" She shook her head. "I know things about the early years of this school's existence that, were I human, I should not, and I know that I know them, but ask me not  _how_  I know them, for I do not have an answer."

That, to Jen's disappointment, put an end to that line of questioning. A moment of silence fell between them, and then the disembodied intelligence turned to gaze out at the Forbidden Forest. "I am sure you have questions regarding why I wish to speak privately with you like this."

"A couple had crossed my mind," she answered, though she really did not feel like she had been given much time in which to start wondering things. Between the Study, Elsie, the pooka, and now Portia, the back of her mind was fully occupied thinking about how much she really needed a drink right now.

"This world grows strange and frightening," the spirit of Hogwarts murmured. "The centaurs whisper of dark portents, an ominous conjunction of Mars and Pluto. The foul Acromantulas that slow-witted groundskeeper allowed to colonize my forest become restless, threatening to creep ever closer and endanger the lives of the students. Heroes drown in their own egos and blindly walk down the same path they claim to abhor. I fear for my students and my staff, Jennifer Black; I fear that the slathering beast named War will crash through those meager gates and hunt down all those who depend on my walls to protect them. My powers, though great in their own ways, are limited in scope, and I can do nothing to the enemy who is invited into my walls, which some here seem determined to do.

"And yet," she continued, turning to face Jen, "almost appropriately, it is in these strange times that I find a strange woman. A servant of the darkness who opposes another agent of darkness; a witch who kills to protect and protects so she might kill again. I know not to whom I should turn, in whom I should trust. Traditionally I would rely on my headmaster, but Albus Dumbledore I would have gladly destroyed by my own will were I permitted for what he did to my students, and Griselda Marchbanks is a peacemaker, not a warrior."

"Please tell me you aren't looking at me for that job," pleaded Jen. "Like you said, I'm a serial killer. I murder other people for personal power. That alone—"

Portia raised a long, thin finger. "And yet it was only when you realized an incubus had awoken and begun to prey on his fellows that you arranged his death. You removed a piece of evil from within one of my secret places. You drowned the streets of Hogsmeade with blood to save the least of my children. Only your brother has accomplished tasks on a similar scale in recent years, and I am leery of trusting him in a scenario such as this. A hero he might be, but he refuses to do all that is necessary to protect my students for fear of defiling his moral character. You, however, have proved you will not hesitate to stain your blade red."

"You would place your sheep in the care of a wolf? Don't you know that would just be leading them to the slaughter?" she tried again. She was not a gentle shepherd, no matter that she had a habit of looking out for children she deemed 'hers'. Anyone who would trust her with the safety of another was a fool; even she herself would not trust her not to sacrifice others if doing so would give her some advantage!

"I held the king of serpents in my belly for centuries in preparation for a time when I would have to slaughter all those who attacked me and mine. One of my parents was a sell-sword whose temper made him a fright both on the battlefield and in the tavern. Heroes and villains both I have watched grow up inside my halls, and both equally I helped achieve their desires. I have stared into the abyss and watched monsters be born and grow into their full depravity, and it is for this reason that I can state with all confidence that monsters, for all the evil within them, may yet defend those they find worthy of their attention." The ghostly woman took a step toward Jen, then another, until she was within arm's reach. The incorporeal hand that passed through her shoulder was warm, quite unlike the cold of a ghost's touch, and Portia glared at the offending appendage for a moment before returning her gaze to Jen. "Fate named you as a protector, and despite everything else that has happened to you, you still carry the weight of that destiny within your very soul. Deny it all you wish, but the only one who will be deceived by your words is you, and I believe even you know I speak the truth of this.

"But I do not request that you behave contrary to your nature, Jennifer Black. You are no self-sacrificing shield, nor are you a chivalrous sword. You are the scythe of the harvest, the reaper's blade. All I ask is that you carry out your master's will and usher in the winter so that spring may finally visit this land anew."

To their side, the trapdoor set into the floor was flung open, and Portia gave her one more small smile before fading into nothingness.

"So this is where you've been all afternoon!" Morag declared, Padma following at her heels. "We've been looking all over for you. You just up and disapp— Jen, are you okay? You're pale as a ghost."

That startled a too-high laugh out of her, and both her housemates stared at her worriedly. "It's been… very strange," she finally admitted, flicking a finger behind her back to dispel the charm she had cast upon herself to keep anyone from following her while she was performing her illegal Evocation. If only she had left it off; she might have avoided the very uncomfortable conversation she had been forced into. "Let's just… go. Somewhere. I think I've had enough alone time for a while."

* * *

Jen lay wide awake and staring up at the ceiling. It was only natural that she could not sleep, she supposed, not after a day like today. Elsie's taunts, the pooka's disturbing unnaturalness, Portia's…  _everything_. She had spent the entire evening doing her best to distract herself from the weighty revelations dumped upon her: reading a few chapters of a novel, chatting with her friends about the most tedious of topics, shagging her girlfriend until Luna was literally begging for her to stop. And yet, here she lay at just after three in the morning. Her mind would not shut up.

Gently rolling the svelte blonde off from on top of her, she stood from their shared bed and silently walked across the room and into the hall toward the sixth-year girls' bath. There had to be something that would let her drift off, and if a warm bath did not do the trick, it would at least wash away the sweat and secretions that had dried onto her skin. As the tub filled with soapy water, she found herself looking down at her arms, more specifically at her left wrist and the scar that would forever proclaim her servitude to Death.

Perhaps it was the fatigue talking, but she could not help the feeling that the recent gift of the Baron's was far more than it seemed. Access to and authority over all the beasts of his realm? Did he know of some new disaster building on the horizon, something where she would need his creatures? Or was this a reward for standing against the Turk, or maybe even another gift for taking care of Voldemort's soul jars? She had no clue, and it was not as if she could just go ask him.

Or maybe she could.

Her eyes widened and the haze of sleep left her brain as she considered that thought. It… wasn't impossible, necessarily. The Labyrinth was not a land where normal humans could safely walk, but she was not normal, was she? She had journeyed not one, nor two, but three different times to the Baron's realm, and each one she had survived. Elsie had even been kind enough to explain the reason why: by swearing her soul to Baron Samedi when she was seven years old, she had become something different from the garden-variety human. It was why she had been able to grab Binns's arm the previous year and also likely why Portia thought they would be able to touch one another.

She was a creature of Death, and she had with her a conduit to his power.

Still looking down at her left wrist, she examined her Death-blessed scar with new eyes. Her scar was enough for the Baron to take control of her Evocation, but did that mean it was also enough for her to follow that invisible thread of power back 'home' to the Labyrinth? There was only one way to find out.

Jen shut off the water and stepped into the tub before her caution, and probably her common sense, could warn her off the idea. She would not be moving bodily to that plane between life and afterlife; only her mind, her soul, would jump realms, and so long as she kept her body from drowning while she was elsewhere, she should have no problems returning. She had done it before with no ill effects, after all, and if this worked, it would be nice to have a way to open communications with her patron Power on her own terms rather than just waiting for him to contact her.

Leaning her head back against the side of the tub, she focused all her attention on her scar. There had to be some hint about how to do this, something obvious she was missing. Sadly, the warm water was lulling her into the sleep that had previously eluded her, and she felt her eyelids flutter closed almost against her will. Oh, well. At least something good had come from her—

—By the Baron, that was cold!

Jen's eyes shot open again, the sudden disappearance of her sonar waking her up almost as much as the unexpected change in temperature. Her vision, however, did little to let her know what was going on, but between the swirling mists that hid the world around her and the lack of her sixth and primary sense, she knew where she was. Throwing one arm up in celebration, she let out a single loud laugh.

She had done it! She was standing inside the Labyrinth!

 _Okay, Jen, so you made it to the Baron's world_ , she thought.  _Now what?_

Hoping against hope, she tried to dredge up the magic to cast a locator spell, but to her utter lack of surprise, she did not feel even the vaguest stirrings of power within her body. Maybe it was because she had no core, or maybe because this was not the mortal world, but she had already mostly known from her missing sonar that she would not be able to spell-sling her way out of this. If she wanted to find her patron and talk to him, especially in light of his boon, she would need to find him the old-fashioned way. Without any idea of where she should look first or even where she was in this world, she started walking straight ahead. Maybe she would find a landmark, maybe even an area that was not so full of fog…

Or maybe a large crowd of people.

Not fifty feet from where she had arrived walked a long line of people, their varied facial features revealing them to be from all over the globe. None of them wore a single stitch of clothing, but neither did they seem to notice their nudity. In fact, she realized as she continued watching them, they also did not look right; they were all a little on the grey side, their skin tones reminiscent of corpses, a fact that made perfect sense after a moment's consideration. Stepping closer to the edges of the convoy, she reached out and tapped a short Asian man on the shoulder. He did not notice her touch, nor did the Arabian woman, nor the Nordic boy. Not one of them responded to her or even looked her way. Even when she shoved one man into his neighbor, the pair merely stumbled for a moment before resuming their unthinking walk as though she had not interfered in the first place.

A high-pitched, nasal voice broke the silence. "They are incredibly boring, are they not?" Jen turned around to watch the male figure walking through the mists toward her, a black suit with ragged edges hanging off his stretched-out frame and a top hat of the same color hiding the upper half of his grey head. She bowed her head at the approach of Baron Samedi, but he ignored her deference and came to a halt beside her. A dark-skinned hand plucked the ever-present cigar from his mouth and ground the smoldering tip against the face of a passing woman, but even when he pulled his hand away to reveal her burnt eyeball, she did nothing. "Animals at least have some instincts they can rely on, but humans? Nothing."

"But it's humans you choose to be your avatars," she cautiously reminded him. "Why?"

The Baron gave her a small half-smirk, the corner of his mouth curling where it sat immediately adjacent to his ear, and took a few long strides away before he waved his left hand with its cigar to indicate she should follow. "It is a foolish thing to wander around here," he warned once she caught up with him. "The uninitiated rarely notice where this realm stops and Guinea begins until they have already stepped through, and no living human may cross freely back once they enter the Afterlife. Still," he continued in an almost condescending voice, "you did well enough for your first time traversing the realms. Few of my servants ever think to try such a thing. It makes me wonder just what it could be that motivated you to do so. I am sure it was not just to see me, though arriving here in the nude would cause some to wonder."

"I've been naked every other time you pulled me here."

"But on those occasions, you were not quite so wet when you laid eyes on me as you are now."

She crossed her arms under her breasts and tried her hardest not to glare at the manifestation of Death, the few drops of water still lingering on her skin from the bath slowly trailing downwards. Taking a mental step back, she focused on the question he had asked. Curiosity and having nothing better to do, though they were the honest answers, were also not the best answers she could give, the Baron's ability to listen to her every thought be damned. "Two reasons. First, thank you." He stopped and twisted his head around to look at her while she bowed at her waist until she was nearly perpendicular. "I greatly appreciate the authority you have granted me over the creatures of this realm. I give you my word that your gift will not be squandered."

"It had better not be." She stood straight only to find him walking once more. "And the second reason?"

"The last time we spoke, you talked about how there were only thirteen active Powers, not fourteen, and that one of the Light was… mostly dead?" The Baron puffed patiently on his cigar. "What did you mean by that?"

The Baron muttered, "I did say it was a tale for another time, and this is another time, I suppose. Very well. You know the names of your greatest enemies, do you not?"

"Tiferet and Holda, Marduk, Ma'at, the Seelie Queen, Aatxe, and…" She trailed off warily. All the Powers had an opposite – 'rival' was far too weak a word – whom they could not stand, and she did not know that she wanted to tempt her patron's ire by voicing the name of the Unending Wheel. Still, he was the one who had bid her speak, and she would comply. "And Enoch."

"Enoch," he agreed with a soft snarl. "A thief and a worthless imitator, trapped going through the same motions again and again without pause because he was too idiotic to think of something new. And more self-absorbed and self-righteous than any of the rest. I would gladly have laid waste to him and any servants he chose, Pact or no Pact, and I did so on more than one occasion and thereby shattered the shackles that keep our war from laying waste to your world." He chuckled, his voice momentarily losing the nasal inflection she was used to and changing into something far more forbidding. "I expect some of them still do not realize that those wars, and the extinctions of innumerable species our battles precipitated, only increased my influence on the mortal plane at the expense of their own, but that is neither here nor there.

"When the ancestors of modern man were just beginning to leave the trees and walk upon the ground, Enoch finally had an original idea. He thought to go down to those advanced apes and take a more 'hands-on' approach to guiding their development. What his end goal was, whether he planned to use them to supplement his own power or even elevate them far enough that they might have worth as fighters against us, I do not know, nor am I convinced that he had a specific plan in mind. For him to descend to your world without inciting yet another skirmish, however, he knew he would have to change from who he was for him to have any possibility to succeed. But as I have already said, he abhorred change of any kind and was truly incapable of it. To sidestep that deficiency, he reached out to one of his allies, Titania, and asked for her assistance in the matter. She agreed, and he departed, thinking the matter all but over.

"What he could not expect was that Titania is a far more pragmatic individual than he was. The faery courts were still in the midst of repopulating their ranks, the greatest fighters on both sides slaughtered when a three-way scuffle involving Holda, Gaueko, and Aatxe found its way into the middle of the pitched battle going on between the armies, and neither Seelie nor Unseelie wished to fight anew while their ranks were stretched so thin. She knew that, should she help him attain what he wanted, it would be the signal to start yet another campaign. Instead she moved in secret and did the unthinkable: she called for parley with Perchta."

"Perchta?" Jen repeated in confusion. As engaging as this story was, she was struggling to wrap her head around that. Light meeting with Dark? The Wild Hunt was a dangerous force to fight, that was widely accepted, but why would the Seelie Queen make a deal with the Hunt's mistress? "What use would Titania have for her brand of necromancy? I don't think ghosts would do much good in that situation."

The Baron blew out a long stream of smoke. "Perchta's skills lie in the manipulation of spirits generally, no matter that her servants prefer the spirits of other humans. That was why Titania needed her help. Faery magic is excellent for permanently changing the essence of all things, but even for a Queen, Enoch was too strong for her to betray him alone. When the time came, Titania invited him into her realm and changed him into a spiritual form, and it was then that Perchta leapt out of hiding and butchered him. 108 pieces she carved out, and before he could restore himself, Titania further mangled him beyond all recognition. So violent was her attack that he lost his own sense of self, and then she banished his scraps to the mortal world as she had previously pledged."

"Why didn't she just kill him then?" asked Jen. "If she had him vulnerable like that—"

"Beyond the fact that I doubt any of us can be truly obliterated? Neither Titania nor Mab are capable of destruction in such a direct manner. Had she left the task solely to Perchta, he would have reformed, but once she bound him in fire and flesh, he was no longer a pure spirit that Perchta could harm. Since he had agreed to the bargain she offered, however, she could twist the wording of her vow to its utmost limit and lock away the vast majority of his power.

"With the entity known as Enoch no longer truly in existence, his realm began to crumble, but not before the pair looted the remains. Titania stole the bedrock beneath his demesne and later changed it into a perpetual battleground that only those of fae nature may enter, thereby preventing all others from ever again interfering in her constant war with Mab. Perchta, however, took his maps and his saber, the tools he had used to carve hidden paths in the thicket between Guinea and the mortal realm. It is how she grants her servants the ability to recall the spirits of humans who have already passed into the Afterlife."

That was… wow. Shaking herself from her shock, she muttered, "I should just be glad that I've never run into any of Enoch's fragments, then, I suppose."

"Mm. You already have, actually."

"Already have? What do you mea— The Seelie Queen bound Enoch in fire and flesh." She let out a long sigh when Death just nodded. "She turned him into bloody phoenixes?!"

"Why did you think their song effected you so much more strongly than it did the abomination? Enoch is as dead as it is possible to make him, but his power is still in direct opposition to my own, and it is for that reason that it is so repulsive to you." He chuckled lightly. "No, what should bring you joy is that phoenixes are incapable of granting mortals white magic, else you would have spent the last two years in the hands of our enemy. The former lord of your school exemplifies the behavior Enoch would undoubtedly have sought out."

Jen grumbled, "And there isn't a way to kill off all those blasted birds forever, is there?"

"Unfortunately, there is not. 108 there were, are, and will be. Never 107; never 109." Tapping the brim of his hat with one finger, he continued thoughtfully, "That said, there is a time when they can be 'killed', by a certain definition of the word. From the time a phoenix molts until it regains its plumage thirteen days later, it cannot be reborn by its own fire. Should you destroy it within that timeframe, it will be reborn where that particular fragment first landed, but while it will retain its name and its personality, all the memories it has acquired over its life will be lost forever. Depending on one's perspective, it could be said that that specific phoenix is dead and it has merely been replaced by another sharing the same name and traits." Death smirked at her displeased scowl. "No matter the form, Enoch is a most  _persistent_  annoyance."

"Is that what the Veil is for?" she wondered aloud. "So your avatars could kill a phoenix and chuck the chick through it into another world or something?"

"Veil?"

Looking at the Baron's tilted head, she felt her hopes of discovering the truth behind the Unspeakables' so-called greatest mystery wither and die. "It's an artefact I saw once. An arch, unsupported by any columns, with a veil hanging down to the floor. Living things can go in, but nothing comes back out. It was once called the Well of Mímir, and now the Veil of Death. I know it was made with black magic, and due to the name, I had wondered… Were you really not the one whose power created it?"

"Ah, that. No, I had no hand in its crafting. I think I do know who it was who did, but…" He smirked at her and shook his head. "But no, if you wish to learn that bit of history, you will have to do the work yourself. I do believe you find the story interesting if it is what I presume it to be.

"Now that you have had your curiosity assuaged, I believe it is time for you to return to the realm of your birth. Your soul may dwell in this place, but your body can only survive so long without you within it." She nodded in understanding, but before she could try focusing on her body to make the return trip herself, the mists around them crashed into her and shoved her backwards into the void—

"Ah!" she shrieked as she leapt from the bath. She was freezing! And that was not just a turn of phrase, she realized when she looked at the ring of ice that had started growing where the water met the sides of the tub. Her teeth chattered while she wrapped herself snuggly in a towel and pulled the chain to drain the water, and it was only once she had left the room, crossed the hall, and was back in her dorm that she began to regain any warmth. Crawling back under the sheets, towel and all, she pulled Luna close and drank greedily of the blonde's body heat.

_Note to self: the next time I try that, take a blanket._

* * *

**On the one hand, the Room of Requirement is too useful a resource not to include; on the other, it gets boring reading about Harry finding out about it via the house-elves in story after story. Hopefully the first scene found a balance between familiar and new.**

**I have now named all fourteen Light and Dark Powers in-story, and from there, it should be easy to figure out who is rivals with whom.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	15. Worse Fates

**In the reviews for last chapter, people finally told me that I've been using 'Invocation' where I should have been calling Jen's summoning 'Evocation'. That has now been fixed in all previous chapters.**

**As a follow-up, if you notice that I've made a mistake somewhere,** _**please** _ **bring it to my attention. I have never claimed to be perfect, and I know I'm going to screw up somewhere. I'd much rather hear about it immediately and fix it sooner rather than five chapters later.**

**Disclaimer:**  Were the heads of house all members of staff who taught all seven years rather than the elective teachers who only taught five years and so would have more time to handle their students' problems? Is so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 15  
** **Worse Fates**

A tawny owl fluttered amongst all the other birds sailing above the tables in the Great Hall. Spotting the recipient of its burden, he pulled his wings in close to his body and plummeted toward her, only spreading his limbs out once more when he was nearly to his destination. Once the human girl had taken the thick envelope that was tied to his talons, he snapped up a slice of ham from a nearby plate and took off again, eager to return to his perch and get some sleep before yet another human rented out his services.

Jen was too preoccupied to concern herself with the owl, however. The letter in her hands had no seal stamped into the wax, but the handwriting itself was familiar. Where had she seen this before?

"Are you going to open the letter or just stare at it?" Tracey asked, forkful of eggs waiting in the air.

"I was just trying to figure out who it's from," she replied as she tore the envelope open and pulled out the single sheet of parchment contained within. "I know I know the handwriting, but I can't remember from where… Oh."

Padma glanced up at her displeased tone. "Oh?"

"Yes, oh. I know why I recognize the writing now." Turning back to her best friend, she explained, "It's the same person who sent me the first letter."

The Slytherin winced in understanding, at which point Luna had to jump in with the most awkward question possible. "First letter? What are you talking about?"

"It… was a letter someone sent me anonymously. All he said about himself was that he was a secret admirer and fancies me. I thought I knew who it was from, but when I replied to that person, I was told that he was, in fact, not the author."

Luna did not seem pleased with that answer if her scowl was any indication.

"So it's a letter from a secret admirer. So what?" Morag dismissively asked.

"This letter is a little… different." They did not seem convinced, so steeling herself, she prepared to read it aloud. Normally, she would not even consider doing this, but the author of this letter had crossed a line. She might also need a little assistance to deal with it.

_To my dark-haired darling,_

_I hope this letter finds you in fine spirits. I was hoping that you would reply to my previous note, but I realized after a few days that you are not the sort of woman who would end this game so quickly. You were a tease even on our first meeting, but I can read you like none other, and I know your heart belongs to me just as my own belongs to you_.

A sharp  _tink_  interrupted her, and the Ravens, along with one lone Snake, glanced over to find Luna with her eyes closed and her nostrils flared while the tines of her fork ground slightly against the ceramic plate.

"Okay then…" said Morag in a slow, worried voice. "That's the end of it, I hope?"

"No such luck. It gets better."

_I will say, however, that I was hurt that you would go so far as to even pretend not to see me. I do not ask for much, simply that when we are alone as we were in Edinburgh that you show me the slightest hint that you are not simply toying with my heart. The heart is a delicate thing, my sweet, and it can be bruised should you be too rough with it._

_If you would be so kind, could you also pass a request to your blonde friend?—_

The others' eyes turned to Luna.

— _I noticed her eyes wandering over you while you and your friends were shopping. I do not know if you were aware or not, but I think it would be best if you let her know that your love is already spoken for. It will be hard to do, for despite your façade, we both know that yours is a gentle soul, but you know, too, that I am a jealous wizard. If she tries to steal you away from me, I will defend you as is my right. Whatever injuries she leaves with will be her own fault, and I do not wish to upset you by hurting your friends. I do not enjoy having you angry with me._

_I think of you every night, my wondrous Jennifer. Please do not make me wait too long to hold you once again._

_Yours forevermore,  
_ _Your greatest admirer_

The five girls sat silently for a moment, four of them considering what she had just read, and finally it was Padma who voiced what Jen herself had been thinking. "Well… That was creepy. And you don't know who wrote this?"

"Not a clue. It's just one of the myriad of reasons this thing,"—she gave the sheet of parchment a sharp snap—"worries me."

"Maybe if you hadn't decided to chase a bunch of random wizards, you wouldn't have to put up with it," Luna replied with uncharacteristic cattiness. The tight crossing of her arms over her chest revealed that the majority of her temper was probably – hopefully – the result of her fear. "And now not only do you have some strange wizard stalking you, he's threatening me. Thank you so much."

"He can threaten all he wants. He's not going to hurt you."

"How sure of you are that? After all," the blonde said, though her face brightened as she thought over what she was about to say, "unless you stay next to me the entire time we're in Edinburgh, there's no way you can guarantee that I'll be safe there."

"I might do just that." It would not even be that much of an obstacle for her meetings with her suitors. Sirius and Cissy knew that she could leave Hogwarts whenever she wanted, so she just needed to let them know that she would be otherwise occupied on those third Saturdays. She would also have to keep her movements hidden from Luna or recruit her other friends to run interference while she was out. This marriage had to happen to continue House Black's ascendance back to the glory they enjoyed for all those centuries before Voldemort bungled that up. This was her House, after all; soon enough, the family's power would be her power, and she refused to let the House she would lead lose that power if she could do anything to prevent it.

Jen liked her girlfriend, really she did, but Luna's territoriality was becoming increasingly inconvenient.

Mollified by her agreement, Luna nodded and turned back to her breakfast, and that was when a commotion at the staff table caught their attention. Bagshot, the witch Marchbanks had hired on to teach History of Magic and who had literally written the book on modern British history, had shot to her feet and was now staggering around the table, her hand splayed out over the front of her robes. Babbling and Burbage rose to their feet and were looking worriedly at the woman; even Snape had turned eyes from his breakfast to see what was going on. Two steps down the middle of the Hall… three…

The elderly witch pitched forward and landed on the stone floor with a dull thump.

A moment of silence fell over the students. Closing her eyes briefly, Jen could almost smell the faintest shadow of cigar smoke and feel a chilly breeze playing with her hair. Or maybe it was her imagination; she could not say for sure. What she did know was that as Bagshot had fallen, her eyes were stuck in the flat stare of the dead.

"Students, clear the room!" Sprout barked, her gaze tilting slightly towards the Hufflepuff table on the far right. "First period is hereby canceled!"

Personally, Jen would have insisted that her baby Ravens and Snakes stuck around – death was something to be faced and accepted as a fact of life, especially a death as clearly natural as this one, else the world would be filled with cowards who tried to flee the Baron's grasp like Voldemort – but with a sigh she stood and pitched her voice to carry down the Ravenclaw table. "You heard her. First- and second-years, come with me. Third-years, too, if you want." Turning to lead her charges from the room, she smiled slightly when she felt that the majority of her third-years had chosen to follow along, as well. Considering that she had spent a substantial portion of her time her first year at Hogwarts serving as in a big sister role for them – not too much a change from her last few years working in Candyland – it was no great surprise that confronted with the death of a professor, they would turn to a familiar face.

It was a bit more surprising that her second- and third-year Slytherins were scurrying from their table to tag along with their Ravenclaw friends. The smile she wore widened.

"I need one person from each year and house to get up here to the front of the line!" she told them while leading them out of the Great Hall and toward the front doors. If she was going to work with close to two hundred students from three different education levels, especially since she had already decided how she was going to distract them for ninety minutes, she was not going to do it inside the stuffy castle. The five students gathered at her command, and she asked, "What classes did you have first today?"

"Runes and Care," the third-years immediately answered.

The little girl who had been nominated to speak for the youngest Ravens looked around for a moment before piping up, "We had Charms."

"Still working on the levitation charm?" she prompted, earning a nod. That should be easy enough to cover, though it would be boring for the older years. "What about you?"

The second-year Ravenclaw shook his head. "Free period," he eventually explained to her raised eyebrow.

All that was left was the twelve-year-old Snake, and after a long moment, he looked down and muttered, "History."

"Ah. Well, I can't cover that with you, nor Care of Magical Creatures." Runes and Charms, yes, but that left nothing for the second-years unless she wanted to teach them Runes a year early. Not to mention, from the numerous comments her friends, Morag in particular had made, the first year of Ancient Runes was exceedingly boring, but they needed that foundation to know what they were doing—

Or did they? A small smirk grew as she realized the perfect plan and directed her charges to a wide area next to the lake. None of them had ever seen a levitation charm cast like this before. "Okay, I have a plan. Firsties, over to my right; second- and third-years, to my left. I'll be with you in just a moment." After setting the first-years to practicing their charms, dropping a few hints along the way that they might want to watch the show she was about to put on for their seniors, she turned back to the kids she had worked with for a longer period of time. "You're going to be working on the levitation charm, too, but in a slightly different way."

"The levitation charm?" Miles, one of her third-year Snakes, whined. "But that's so simple. Can't you teach us something better?"

She rolled her eyes and flicked her wrist, conjuring a fir stick in her hand that she could use both as a prop and a pointer. Green smoke followed the tip as she drew a symbol that looked a great deal like a capital 'M'. "All right, question for my Runes students. Which Futhark character is this?"

"Ehwaz!" chirped one boy before anybody else could even open their mouth.

"Correct. Five points to Ravenclaw. Who can tell me what it does? You."

The Snake she pointed at smiled broadly. "The ehwaz rune, meaning 'horse', is the rune that is related to travel, transportation, and movement in general."

"And take five points for Slytherin." A wave of her fake wand made the smoke vanish. "Now, ordinarily runes are carved into physical objects, but they don't necessarily need to be. If you instead carve them out with your magic into the air"—she sketched the rune again, but this time it possessed the iridescent sheen her runes always took when she was using runic casting—"you can use them to cast spells, like so."

A fist-sized rock at the edge of the water rose smoothly into the air. Unfortunately, none of her students looked all that excited of learning another way of casting a spell they had already mastered with a wand.

"You can even use them for spells you don't know the incantations or wand motions for." Tapping the rune, she switched the force from upwards to away and increased the strength immensely, and the stone rocketed away to create an enormous splash when it hit the water.

 _That_  got their attention.

"A little more interesting now, isn't it?" she said with a grin. "The hard part is drawing the rune. The incantation is  _Epoto_ , which you'll find very useful to know even if you don't use this kind of casting much in the future, as it is also the incantation to activate runic scripts. The rest of the spell is all about sketching the rune and telling it what you want it to do."

Leaning back, she watched the two years' worth of students shouting out the incantation and waving their wands around in the air for a moment before turning her attention to a first-year who wanted her help. For all that runic casting was classed as a Dark Art, it was anything but true dark magic, and a quick bit of research the previous year had revealed that the majority of the British magical population, even those involved in law, had no idea what it was. The chances of her getting into any kind of trouble for teaching it to the kids was therefore low, and it was a flashy bit of magic, which meant it would keep their attention until it was time for second period when she sent them to their own classes and rushed to Arithmancy.

And if it happened to push some of the second-years into Runes who otherwise would have given it a miss or to serve as the starting point for reintroducing the neutral 'Dark Arts' to the island? So much the better.

* * *

Filius glanced up to find Griselda and Pomona walking into the staff room. "And? What did Poppy say?"

The head of Hufflepuff shook her head sadly, and the headmistress elaborated, "She said it was sudden cardiac arrest. Even if Poppy had been in the Great Hall when it happened, considering Bathilda's age, she probably wouldn't have been able to get her heart beating again."

"She was two hundred years old," Severus muttered. "It isn't a surprise that she died. It's a surprise it took this long. It's the truth!" he added when several professors shot him glares at his irreverence.

"Be that as it may, it still leaves us with a problem." Griselda groaned while settling herself into her chair at the head of the table. "I hate that we have to talk about this while Bathilda is lying up there in the hospital wing, but there is no point in delaying the inevitable, I suppose. What are we going to do about covering her classes? In less than an hour, there will be…" She flicked her wand to summon a sheet of parchment from the stack of schedules and looked over it. "Scratch that. Her next class is the fourth-year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws immediately after lunch. We have a little more time."

"But since we're already discussing it, we might as well finish up," Wilhelmina cut in. "If need be, I can cover her next class, but not the one after that; I procured a flock of Fwoopers to show the fifth-years, but I have to return them within the next couple of days. I don't have any classes on Wednesday or Friday, however, so if you need me to teach History on those days, that should be easily doable."

"I'd prefer not to split the duties of teaching History among several people if I can avoid it. I worry about the lack of consistency and the inconvenience to you and the students both if they came up to you to ask about something, say, Charity mentioned in class and you not having any clue as to what they are talking about." A thoughtful sound came from the headmistress as she pursed her lips. "But that is a good thought. I'll be looking for someone to take over the class on a more permanent basis, but someone who is otherwise less occupied would be the best person to take over in the short term. Aurora, what do you think?"

"What? Oh, no, no, no," the dusky witch quickly denied. "History's not my thing."

"Working a full job clearly isn't, either," Severus added in a cutting tone. "You teach five times a week, all at night, and you don't grade any more essays that the rest of us do. It isn't like you do anything else useful around here."

Septima shot the Potions professor a sharp glare. "While I wouldn't have phrased it quite the same way Severus did, he does make a valid point. If anyone has the time available to cover that class, it would be you."

"But…" Aurora looked around the room, perhaps to find a sympathetic face, but Filius could tell that was in vain. Of all twelve – now eleven – teachers employed at Hogwarts, she was the only one whose job was part-time, a fact he knew from his years helping Minerva keep the school's finances straight. "What about Rolanda? She does even less that I do. Now that the first-years' flying classes are done, all she has to do is be in her office a few hours a week and referee the Quidditch matches. And she doesn't give out any homework that needs to be graded! She's perfect for this."

"Rolanda isn't interested in a full-time position," Minerva explained with a shake of her head. "She spends most of her time taking care of her ailing parents, and her brother, whom they all live with, earns more than enough to keep them comfortable. She technically isn't even employed as a member of staff. She just volunteers her time because she loves Quidditch and watching children learn to fly."

"And speaking of money, you would be compensated if you agreed to this," said Griselda. "Until I find a new professor, you would receive the salary for both History and Astronomy. Minus the value of duplicate fringe benefits, of course."

"I… But…" With a frustrated huff, Aurora crossed her arms and slumped back in her chair. "Fine. Since I don't seem to have any choice in the matter. But! I want to grab a couple of NEWT students to help with the homework. If you're forcing me to work during the school day and at night, too, I won't have the time to grade all the essays from one class, let alone two."

"That is acceptable," the headmistress agreed after a moment's consideration. "Check with Severus to make sure the students you approach aren't already busy helping him out. I'd like a copy of the list once you've made it up, too. Providing that kind of help deserves a commendation in their records."

"If you need suggestions, you can always take Miss Granger. I'm trying to nudge her into teaching," Minerva explained when they all glanced curiously at her, "and I think this would be a good opportunity for her to get some hands-on experience."

"She wouldn't want to work with me," commented Aurora, her smile bearing all the sweetness of poisoned honey. "And while it would be amusing to force her to grade essays two or three times the assigned length like she made me do until I forced her to stop, I worry about how the students' marks would suffer. Perfectionism is not always a virtue."

"How did you force her to stop?" Filius asked. He had had the same problem with Miss Granger up until the middle of the third year, and while she still had a penchant for going overboard on her essays, it was far more restrained than it had once been.

"I held her back after class and told her that if she did it again, I would give the assignment a zero because she refused to follow directions. If I ask for a one-foot essay, I want an essay that is one foot long, not two and definitely not three."

A weak chuckle went through the room from everyone but Minerva and Severus. The former scowled; the latter just shook his head and asked, "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Thank you, Aurora. That takes one load off my mind." Blowing out a loud sigh, Griselda waved them all away. "Meeting adjourned; get ready for your classes. As far as the kids are concerned, today needs to be business as usual. I'll worry about finding someone to fill the post, but if you have any suggestions, I'll be happy to hear them."

* * *

Her feet touching down on the gravel, Jen quickly made her way to the door of Priest and Menagerie's warehouse hideaway. She had good news, but if they were to capitalize on it, they needed to move quickly. She had no idea if the Turk would change the location of his home base, either on a rotation or by simply picking somewhere else to crash for a time, or what schedule he might be using, and her information was already an hour old. Honestly, they probably had plenty of time, but there was no way to be sure—

The black witch stumbled to a stop, her head turning to the left to check on what she thought she had seen from the corner of her eye. No, she was not, in fact, going insane. Sadly, that just raised more questions. "Priest!"

Several tense moments passed before the dark-skinned wizard came close. "Queen. We were not expecting you to visit. Is there a prob— Ah. That is what caught your attention."

"Yes, that is what caught my attention." She pointed a finger at the  _'that'_  in question. "Why did you skin a woman and pin her pelt to the wall?"

"I would think the reason should be obvious. Protection."

"Protection." He nodded, and Jen brought her hand up to her face and massaged the bridge of her nose. At least it was better than her first guess, which had been that Menagerie had an utterly awful idea of what construed tasteful interior decorating. The other black mages were supposed to keep a low profile, though, for her sake if nothing else. If they attracted the Aurors' attention, Priest and Menagerie could run off to a different country. She, however, still had to live here. "You're going to have to walk me through that one. How does the trophy from killing some random woman protect you from the Turk?"

"One woman's death would not. Four, however, are quite effective. Nor is it a 'trophy'; it is an essential part of the magic." She gave him a look that showed just how unimpressed she was by the explanation. "What do you know of the Sleeper's magics?"

"Just what I've read from my mentor's books. Assume I know nothing and start from the top."

He nodded amicably, the polite smile she had never seen leave his face utterly unaffected by the shift in conversation. "Very well. My patron deity concerns himself with connections. People, animals, objects, places; everything is connected to something else, whether those connections are conceptual or a little less abstract. His favor allows me to redirect those connections as I wish despite how nature would prefer them work. As my own mentor once described it, we sever that which should stay together and combine that which should never be.

"To answer your question, these women protect this place from the Turk's own attempts to divine our location because I gave them that power via breaking a connection elsewhere. First, I needed to find four individuals, preferably four who possessed similar physical make-ups and histories; this is an application of sympathetic magic, much like your trap for the Turk, and so the greater the similarity among them, the stronger the spell I could cast. For this specific piece of magic, I chose four women who were married to working professionals and who had a single teenaged child."

"How would you even know that?" she had to ask, her gaze still focused on the single skin visible. The hide was darkened, possibly due to the woman's habit of tanning herself but more likely the result of whatever preservation process Priest had put her through, though her mousey brown hair was intact and the strange designs traced into the skin were rimmed with red. Jen could only guess that those designs had been carved into the woman's flesh while she had still been alive. More disturbingly, from this distance and with the ambient shadows, it appeared almost as if the skin was quivering of its own accord. "The thing about their husbands and children, I mean."

"I have a spyglass that was enchanted to reveal information of that sort. It was an expensive purchase, but I believe it has proven to be well worth the price," he answered with a negligent shrug. "Because I wanted to protect this building, I had to remove protection from something or someone else who was connected to these women. In this case, it was from their children. So long as we are in need of their services, their children will experience all manners of ill luck, though those misfortunes will not be of the fatal variety. I also needed to keep them alive, and that necessitated a second piece of black magic—"

"Why? Couldn't you just tie them up and feed them a couple of times a day?" she asked. That seemed like it would be the simplest thing to do.

"That is more complicated than one would first think. The stable we have already put together is trouble enough, and those individuals we can sedate to make them more manageable." Jen opened her mouth and immediately closed it again. No, she actually did not want to know the details of that 'stable'. "As I was saying, I needed to keep them alive, and so I performed  _Jameia_  again, this time stealing from their husbands. The dead live on in the hearts of their loved ones, and so to maintain their consciousnesses here, I quenched that love. All that remains in the breasts of their husbands is whatever resentment, bitterness, and anger that was previously drowned out."

Four women who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, all of whom would have husbands who, upon interview by the police, would come across as people with motive to murder their wives? Jen shook her head. And to make matters worse, losing both parents in such a short amount of time would certainly count as nonlethal misfortune for the kids. She did not know whether to be unnerved or impressed.

"Wait," she said as she thought over Priest's phrasing. "What do you mean, ' _maintain their consciousnesses here_ '? Are you saying that they're still aware? And they know what's going on around them?"

"Oh, yes." His smile widened the tiniest amount. "If you are interested in conversing with them, they are even able to answer questions, though you will have to limit yourself to yes or no replies or provide them some means of communication for which they may use solely eye movements. Being flensed removes the rest of their motor control and the breath with which to speak."

She looked again at the woman, and sure enough, the Muggle's green eyes were roving around the room, though they alighted on Jen and Priest more often than she was willing to attribute to sheer coincidence. By the Baron, this was getting a bit much even for her; she, at least, just killed her sacrifices outright. "Do… they feel pain like this?"

Priest rocked back and forth on his heels, his arms crossed over his chest as he considered her question. "To be honest, I actually do not know the answer to that. They probably do, but I cannot say that I have ever asked them," he said in a thoughtful voice. Then he shrugged. "But does it really matter? What brings you here today?"

"Do you remember the letter you sent me three weeks ago? You said that you couldn't track the Turk." He nodded. "I found him."

"How?!" demanded Menagerie with a snarl. The Greek witch stormed out from between the stacks of crates. "We tried everything we could think of, and we came up with nothing. How did you find him, and how are you not dead yet?"

"I'm going to guess that last question is because you think I was stupid enough not to run if I ran across him unprepared and in person," she replied in a dry voice. "Quite simple, really; I didn't go looking for him myself. I sent someone else to do it for me, and he told me what he found only an hour ago." Admittedly, having a pooka assemble a picture of the Turk's current lair using bits and pieces of her own memories was a decidedly uncomfortable experience, and she had been forced to play a guessing game with her scrying mirror both to identify the location in question and find a safe place where they could teleport in, but in the grand scheme of things, those were really minor inconveniences.

"You sent someone else to do it for you?" Menagerie asked with stark disbelief.

"Is not a queen permitted to have subjects?" Jen replied in a mild tone. She shook her head. "It was more complicated than just pointing to someone and telling him to follow the Turk around and report back, true, but the end result is the same. Now, are we going or not?"

Five minutes later, Jen teleported into a small alleyway that she had already visited and cast a silencing charm over to drown out the  _crack_  of their arrival. "He's two blocks that way," she said while pointing to the right side of the alley. "How are we going to do this? Quick and messy, or slow and quiet?"

"Quiet might be best for the moment," decided Priest. Menagerie shot him a displeased look and sucked up the small swarm of creatures she had already released. "This could turn into a fight, at which point we cannot be sure it will not attract attention, but there is no reason not to try to sneak in and kill him unaware."

Of course, their outfits – full business suit, hooded coat and trousers, and half-naked – did not naturally lend themselves to 'not attracting attention', so Priest threw up a Notice-Me-Not over them as they walked the short distance to the Muggle housing complex where the white wizard had hidden himself. "You have a room number?"

"Flat 209. It faces the other side of the property, so he should not be able to see us coming until we're already there."

It was somewhat strange for three mages to prepare themselves to attack a fourth in the middle of the Muggle world, and Jen could not help but think about just how many problems the aftermath of this battle was going to cause. Thanks to having and Auror for a cousin, she knew just how thin the Obliviators were stretched normally, and this? This might just push them to the limit if things went bad, particularly if something else happened at the same time. On the one hand, she really would prefer not to run the risk of attracting the Ministry's attention to herself for violating the Statute of Secrecy, but on the other, she really needed the Turk's head on a platter.

Decisions, decisions.

"The door's trapped," she warned when they got close enough for her sonar to reach it. Priest looked over at her and slowly lowered his hand from where he had been about to pull out his wand. "Light magic of some kind, but I can't tell what spell it is."

"This is your operation, Queenie," Menagerie prompted quietly. "How will you get us in?"

Good question. Looking around at their meager surroundings – just the trapped door, a small wall with a window, the railing on the balcony – an idea finally came to her. Jen bent down a little and spread her thumb and index finger, and a gap in the blinds on the other side of the window widened to let her peer in. No one waited for them in that room, especially with the thin layer of dust covering everything, and the door leading deeper into the flat was closed. Perfect.

Standing straight, she trailed her left hand down in front of the wall, and the faux stucco wall melted into a thick, gelatinous ooze. The goo flowed to the ground, the entire window sliding down with it, and once she had created an opening large enough for them to enter, she forced the molten wall to rise in thick streams and cover the door. A flick of her wrist transfigured the now-resolidified material into steel cables. Their quarry was not going to escape this way. She glanced at her companions and raised a finger to her lips, and then she stepped over the window.

Behind her, she felt Priest and Menagerie giving each other a look. Menagerie eventually nodded and followed her inside.

A monster that faintly resembled a hairless, leather-skinned jackal leapt off the pink-haired witch's right leg and wound its way between Jen and the wall. Large ears pointed at the ceiling for a moment as the creature listened to the other room before falling back. A low rumble slipped from the beast.

Now that they were in, how were they going to get to the Turk? After a moment's consideration, she laid a silencing charm over the opening she had made. It would not last long, but they would not need it for very long. She touched the wall with one hand and made a fist, then splayed her fingers out in the direction of the other room. It took a moment, but soon enough Priest's eyes widened and he gave her a nod. Jen held up three fingers, then two, then one.

Time to get loud.

She thrust both hands at the wall. The sheetrock and wood exploded outward, the entire wall crumbling into a hailstorm of projectiles, and before her first attack could reach its target, she shook one hand and let loose with streams of lightning. This was not ordinary lightning, though; it was the pale green of death. One of the major drawbacks of the Killing Curse was that it could only hit one target at a time, but while waiting for the pooka to return, she had taken that Unforgivable and spliced it into a wide-area lightning spell she knew. The result spoke for itself.

A bolt of white-hot lightning flashed back from the middle of the room. With the hand not otherwise occupied, she unleashed the spell she had already prepared and conjured a large chunk of steel to take the hit for her. More lances of green flashed out, Priest and Menagerie getting into the action now, and she banished the metal back at the mostly demolished kitchen and used her now-free hand to flood the room with fire.

The Turk dived out from behind cover, his wand flashing out to spray water at the flames in his path. Menagerie was the quickest to react and flung her lethal curses at the now-visible wizard, but he dropped his wand in the same instant that he waved his free hand. A gale tore through the room and blew fragments of the wall into the air to block the fatal curse, and then the debris shot towards them.

Jen stopped both curses to cast a shield that absorbed the blow. A twirl of her hand transformed the pieces into knives, and another flung the blades back just as a loud crash could be heard from the front of the room. Running toward the opening she had made, she spotted a man in a white robe soaring through the air to the spot where she had noted his wards stopped. A twist, a crack, and the Turk was gone.

" _Modi li tout! Nou te gen l'!_  We  _had_  him!"

"The Turk is slippery," said Priest in that damnably calm voice of his. "This is not the first time he has escaped what should have been certain death, and I doubt it will be the last. That we came as close as we did to killing him is an achievement in and of itself."

Menagerie scoffed and reabsorbed her chimera. "No, I'm actually with Queenie on this one. How did we fail in killing the son of a bitch after surprising him like that?"

"The next time we meet, you can ask him. I am far more interested in learning how he avoided our scrying, personally." The dark-skinned wizard peered out the whole at all the people who were already slipping out their doors to learn what had happened and sighed. "However, I do not believe we will have the time."

"Maybe more than you think." Walking away from their entryway, Jen laid a Muggle-repelling charm over the flat. "That should keep out the Muggles, but sooner or later, the DMLE will arrive, and I want to be gone when that happens. I don't feel like getting interrogated today, and I need to get back to school if I want my alibi to hold up."

She was just glad she did not have any classes scheduled for Wednesday mornings. Her friends believed that she was off visiting her family, but if she could be seen by other witnesses in Hogwarts while the Patrolmen or Aurors were investigating things, that would be more evidence in her favor on the  _extremely_ slight chance that anyone decided to question her about this.

Paranoid? Maybe a little, but when she was breaking enough laws to earn herself the Dementor's Kiss ten times over, she had the right to be excessively cautious.

The three black mages returned to the ruined living room, their new task that much harder with all the rubble strewn around. "Look for the wardstone," Priest ordered. "It is likely somewhere central to this apartment. If the wards were over the entire building, he would be less defended. It has to be here."

Picking her way through the debris, Jen frowned at the splotches of white-magic-induced heat splashed here and there on the ground. The Turk had not hit these areas with lightning or wind, so why did it feel like his magic? Feeling around more closely, her sonar soon picked out a stronger source of heat. "Hey, Priest?" she asked while looking at the remains of the five-liter water jug she held in her hands. The plastic was practically burning with white magic, but only on the inside; the outside was completely normal. "Did you think it odd that the Turk was conjuring water with his wand rather than using his elementalism?"

"I did not notice that. If you are correct, that is indeed strange. Why do you ask?"

She looked around the room with new eyes. Sure enough, there were more water bottles scattered everywhere. "Because I think all these jugs of water have been imbued with white magic."

The African wizard stopped his searching and looked where she pointed. "One easy way to find out." Walking over to one sitting on top of an end table, he cracked the seal and stuck the tip of his finger inside.

"Priest!" Menagerie shouted when her colleague seized up and dropped to the ground, his entire body shaking for a long, worrying moment and a high scream trickling through his gritted teeth. A flick of her wand vanished the bottle and the water from where it had spilled when Priest's fall pulled it off its perch. Her flash of fear instantly turned to fury. "What the hell were you thinking?!"

He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position and raised his hand. The tip of that finger was still smoking slightly, and the skin over it had been horribly burned. "I was thinking this was the most convenient method we had to check whether Queen's theory was correct. It clearly was."

"But why would he do it?" Jen asked. After watching Priest get his arm shredded and pay it little mind, she was not greatly concerned about the damage he had inflicted upon himself. "What's the point?"

"The women I transformed have to be placed around the area they are meant to protect," the wizard explained. "I think this might be a similar situation. By infusing this water with white magic, he could hide himself so long as he stayed within its boundaries. Assuming he succeeded in twisting the magic to work as a ward rather than as an attack, it would certainly prevent ordinary scrying charms from finding him. It might also explain why you saw him using his wand to conjure water. That aspect of his power was already invested in his defenses." Priest shook his head and forced himself to his feet. "He prefers using his white magic, but we have seen him using his wand in a fight before. Never at the same time, though; I believe he cannot use or even hold his wand if he wishes to manipulate the elements, though whether that is a command from the Storm-Hunter or there is an unfortunate interaction between his magics, I do not know."

"I think it might be the latter. I can't use a wand because of how I cast magic; it burns out the core and sets the whole thing on fire," Jen muttered. "Let's assume we're right and this is how he managed to avoid you. Can you scry for his magic rather than his location and try to find where he's hiding that way?"

"Possibly. We will have to give it a try," he answered.

Multiple cracks came from outside the building, and Menagerie glanced out the hole in the front wall the Turk had made. "Wizards in blue and black robes just arrived."

"Sounds like Law Enforcement Patrol and Hit Wizards. Investigators and fighters, respectively," she elaborated at the other witch's uncomprehending expression. "Are they headed for us now or dealing with the Muggles first?"

"They're holding back. We have time to get out of here."

"Then let us not tarry." They looked behind them to find Priest opening the oven and pulling out a chunk of stone. A spell quickly reduced the anchor to dust. "Wards are down. Queen, we will be in touch."

The pair turned on their heels and vanished.

"Of course they'd leave me on my own." Jen shook her head and looked out the hole herself. Surprise, surprise, the Hit Wizards had noticed the wards dropping and had left the Patrolmen on their own to hurry toward her. Time to go.

A spin of her own, and the flat was completely deserted.

* * *

 **Creole Corner:**  Damn it all! We had him!

**That was undoubtedly the shortest fight scene I've ever written. That said, it didn't make any sense for it to be longer considering the circumstances.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	16. Tense Negotiations

**Of all the "named OCs" in Harry Potter, my favorite is almost certainly Amelia Bones. I think I've made that clear before, but it bears repeating. Death is probably a close second just because I love writing his conversations with Jen.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did the Prime Minister in book 6 act helplessly during his talk with Fudge instead of behaving like someone who was used to taking charge, a trait that is practically required when running for the top office in a government? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 16  
** **Tense Negotiations**

Amelia straightened out the skirt of her Muggle suit and did her best to ignore Fudge's mutterings.

"… don't see why we're waiting. We can just Floo over now. We don't even need an address; it's a dedicated grate. I certainly never waited for an  _audience_  with the man…"

 _That's because you're an uncouth boor whose only concern is how he can line his pockets fastest_ , she carefully did not say. "You've clearly spent far too much time with Lucius Malfoy, Cornelius."

"Lucius was a valued contributor to my campaign—"

"And he also preferred his delusions to reality," she said over her predecessor's affronted stammering. "Did you treat the Bulgarian Minister like an underling when he arrived for the Quidditch World Cup? Or did you treat him like the head of state he was?"

"But he was a fellow Minister of Magic!"

"Your point?" she demanded in a cold voice. Merlin, she hated dealing with unthinking bigots, and even if Fudge himself were not one, he certainly had kept company with enough of them that it had skewed his own opinions. "Just because the Muggle Minister does not have magic does not mean that he is a fool or a weakling who will just stand back and let us do whatever we want. Especially not when our war results in the deaths of his citizens."

"He was slow enough all the times I talked to him," he bit out.

She definitely did not roll her eyes. "Because he had nothing to say, or because you couldn't be bothered to deal with a 'lowly Muggle' and just breezed in and out before he could get a word in edgewise?"

From his irritated grumblings, the latter was, in fact, exactly what he had done, but before she could say anything else, the froglike portrait of some long-dead Ministry functionary slid back into view. "The Prime Minister of the Muggles will see you know," the painting announced with a distasteful sneer, clearly unhappy with having to deal with not only a Muggle, but one of the few who were cleared to know about the Wizarding World.

Fudge hesitated, so it was instead she who tossed a pinch of Floo powder into the fireplace and stepped through the emerald flames into her Muggle counterpart's office. Taking in first the marble fireplace and the mahogany desk, she turned her attention to the grey-haired man reclining behind that desk. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Minister. I am Amelia Bones, the sitting Minister of Magic for Wizarding Britain."

Her forthrightness seemed to surprise the man, but after a moment he smiled and adjusted his glasses slightly. "The pleasure is mine, Madam Minister. I am surprised, though; I thought that other fellow was the Minister…" He trailed off for a moment as Fudge finally joined them. "Yes, him."

"He was, but due to the variety of… conflicts on our side of the world lately, it was determined that a change needed to be made. I thought that Mr. Fudge had kept you abreast of the situation, since that is the entire reason I named him ambassador to your country," she nearly growled, that comment meant more for Fudge than for the Minister, "but from the fact that you had no idea there was a change in office, I presume that was not the case."

The former Minister of Magic puffed up now that both their eyes were on him. "I was going to inform him when there was something worth discussing!"

Amelia just shook her head. Much as Fudge might not have wanted to do his duties, it was a necessity for the two sides of Britain to maintain cordial relations. That had been a general rule since the early nineteenth century, and in fact was a standing law, that the Minister of Magic had to inform the Muggle Minister any time events in the magical world had the potential to spill over into the Muggle world. Not only was it a logical outgrowth of the Statute of Secrecy – by informing the head of the Muggle government of these situations, they had an ally who would have a better idea of just how to keep magic a secret – it was also the best way to avoid the difficulties that could arise when there were two sovereign states dwelling within the same borders. That was doubly true when one considered that Muggleborns were technically considered citizens by both nations as a result of their childhoods spent in nonmagical society.

If Fudge's prejudices had jeopardized Wizarding Britain's rapport with their closest neighbor, she would have his head. Perhaps even literally at this point.

"Very well. To summarize the situation to a truly ludicrous degree, throughout the 1970s our nation was engaged in a civil war with a group that was doing its best to overthrow the government and take control for themselves through a campaign of mass murder and gruesome executions. Nor did he content himself with fighting wizards; several of the attacks supposedly committed by the Irish Republican Army in that decade were, in actuality, raids conducted by the Death Eaters. In 1981, the leader of that group was killed, and the movement dissolved until a year and a half ago when he returned and gathered his troops again."

The Minister nodded understandingly. "It's always best to assume people like that are still alive until you find the body."

"We did find his body." The Muggle Minister looked at her in utter incomprehension, and she gave him a tight smile. "He was most definitively dead then, and as someone who encountered him both in the last war and this one, he is also certainly alive once more."

"How…?"

"That is a question we would dearly like the answer to, as well."

"Ah." Amelia could tell the instant when he put the dots together. "Then the attack on the cricket pitch in June was the work of this terrorist group of yours? And the more recent destruction of a flat in Harringay?"

She frowned. "The first, yes. The second we are still investigating, but right now, it has none of the indications that it was perpetrated by the Death Eaters."

"I see," replied the Minister in a tone of suspicion. "And what about the bombing of the South Bank on Halloween? I hear the Metropolitan Police have been scratching their heads over that one. The witness accounts make no sense, at least not by the normal rules of reality. If magic is involved, however…"

"According to our own intelligence, that attack was not magical in nature," she lied as her mind whirled. This was the first she had heard about any raid on the South Bank. She really wanted to press the other minister for more information on that score, but two things prevented her from doing that. First, she needed to get rid of the man's obvious and not necessarily undeserved doubt regarding their ability to keep their affairs from affecting the Muggle world. Admitting that she had no clue what he was talking about would run counter to that goal. Second, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had contacts within the Metropolitan Police through the Auror Office, and it would be better to get the full story from them directly rather than receiving a sanitized account secondhand.

"We do need to discuss your security situation," Fudge was saying while she thought over the new facts. "Originally, we had placed a highly decorated Auror as your secretary—"

The Minister's face contorted in barely restrained fury. "You snuck one of your wizards into my staff. Am I supposed to believe that you just 'forgot' to inform me of that little fact, or should I worry that more of my people have been compromised?"

"We had unsubstantiated rumor that the Death Eaters were attempting a plot against your life," inserted Amelia smoothly. It even had the benefit of being true, though she was overstating the amount of trust they had had in the information. Just another Order warning that turned out to be worthless. "Because of the identity of the informant, we were unsure how seriously to take this warning, but we felt it best to move swiftly and put one of our best men in place to defend you in case it was a valid threat. Thankfully, nothing came of it in the end."

"Yes, that is good," the Minister replied, looking somewhat mollified by her quick admission. "Since it is no longer an issue, I presume you will be removing your people from my staff?" It was not a question.

A faint blush tinged her cheeks. As embarrassing as it was to admit it about one of her Aurors… "That actually is not an issue. Shacklebolt was dismissed early in his detail."

"Shacklebolt. Shacklebolt." The Minister shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't remember the name."

"He was fired after less than a week as your secretary."

"Oh. Him!" A swift bark of laughter escaped the Muggle. "Yes, now I remember. He was completely incapable of using the computer or the fax machine. He could barely even work the phone! I just thought he was incompetent, but of course he would be a wizard. Would these Death Eaters of yours be as incapable of blending in with normal people as he was?"

"Worse," she answered with a tight-lipped smile.

"In that case, thank you. I feel much more at ease now."

Fudge looked no happier than she felt at the Minister's dismissal of their attempt to keep the man safe, but she let none of that irritation show on her face. "Still, we would like to put one or two witches near you in case you are the victim of an assassination attempt. It was obviously an error disguising Shacklebolt as a secretary"—the man's smile widened a tiny amount again—"but they are all trained to be able to pass as Muggle bodyguards for situations like this." With Shack's mistakes, she needed to make sure the next guards were better at disguising themselves as Muggles, and her mind wandered to the additional qualifications several of the Muggleborns had requested while she was still the director of the DMLE. "The pair I am thinking of specifically are also trained to use firelegs—"

"Do you mean 'firearms', by chance?" the Minister asked in a too-bland voice.

She scowled momentarily before wiping the expression off her face. "Yes, firearms. My apologies, but it has been a very long week. They are fully certified in those, so they would be able to maintain their roles should an attack that is not magical in nature occur."

"I will give it some thought," he agreed after a second's consideration. "If you will have someone forward me their dossiers, I would be happy to look over them." The Minister rolled a pen beneath his fingers for a moment before he stood. Amelia and Fudge rose, as well, and she shook his hand when he reached out. "Once again, Madam Minister, it has truly been a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I hope we will be able to speak again under better circumstances. We are both busy people, however, and I am sure you have a number of tasks you need to work through just as I do. I do appreciate that you have taken this time out of your schedule to clear up these issues."

As much as being dismissed out of hand was galling, he was correct in that she still had a great deal of work to do. That he was right did not salve her pique. "I appreciate your generosity, as well. We intend to resolve this matter without it disrupting the lives of your citizens any more than absolutely necessary." Leading Fudge back towards the fireplace, she walked through the flames that suddenly billowed up and into her office once again.

"I never did like that man," Fudge ranted the instant he had crossed the threshold behind her. "No respect, none at all. He doesn't even have magic, but he acts like he—"

"Fudge. Shut. Up." Amelia dropped into her chair and rubbed her temples wearily. "Tell me, when I named you as ambassador to the Muggle Ministry, did you think I was tossing you a random title because I like you? Because I wanted to curry your favor? If I give you a job to do, I want you to  _do that bloody job_. I don't want you to make me look like an utter fool because of your incompetence."

"Now see here," the portly man demanded, "I was the sitting Minister for five years, and not once did I have to cater to the blasted Muggles!"

"What you did or did not do during your tenure is absolutely irrelevant."

"Is it? We both know that as soon as this war is over, the Wizengamot will choose a new Minister." His grin was nasty and arrogant. "Who do you think they will choose? You, who keeps stepping on their toes, or me, who knows how to play the game? I'd be nicer if I were you."

"Did you know that your security detail has stopped five people who tried to kill you?" she asked with a sharp smile all her own. He blinked at the apparent non sequitur. "Ironically, three of them wanted you dead because of your love of gold and support for those who freely give it while another two were blood purists who thought your position as ambassador meant you had betrayed their ideals. That security detail is only there because you are supposed to smooth our relationship with the Muggle Ministry."

Now he seemed to get it. His face was as pale as porcelain. "Amelia, surely you wouldn't…"

"If you don't do the tasks required of you, then you are not fit for that position. If you no longer have that position, you no longer deserve the benefits that come with it." She looked away from him at her work, pulling a quill and ink bottle closer. Yes, there had been one attempt to seriously injure or kill Fudge, and it had been due to arrangements Malfoy had convinced Fudge to arrange. That was the lone attack, though, and no matter how much she personally and even professionally disliked her former superior, she would not take away his only protection and let him die if she thought he was truly in danger. That kind of callousness went against everything she believed in.

Fudge, in her position, would do just that, and it was for that reason that he believed her threat.

"Keep the Muggle Minister abreast of how the investigation into the attack on that flat is going, would you?" she directed him. "And if you see Rufus, tell him I need to speak with him within the hour."

The former Minister left in a huff, allowing her to breathe easy once more. If this was what being the Minister of Magic required even when the country was not in a state of war, she was not sure she wanted to keep the job once the Death Eaters had been dealt with.

* * *

 _What could be so important that she called me back on a Monday afternoon?_ , Jen wondered as she tore through space on her way to Grimmauld Place. This was one of her busiest days, Defense for third period and Potions at fifth after a morning of Charms and Runes. The only time she had in which to leave the castle was those ninety minutes of fourth period, but several of those she had needed to spend getting her friends to leave her be without questioning what she was doing. Luna was becoming more and more suspect of anything she tried to excuse by calling it  _'House business'_.

Still, Cissy was not one to panic about minor quibbles, and the letter Jen had received that morning demanding she return to take care of a major problem had definitely carried undertones of panic.

She arrived within the back garden of the London townhouse, and her connection to the wards revealed the immediate source of that distress. Cissy sat stiffly in a chair in the sitting room, her posture the only sign of the emotions undoubtedly roaring within her; in comparison, Rita was positively indolent on the sofa. What news had her enslaved reporter brought with her this time?

Eschewing the floor, she instead floated quickly through the house until reaching the sitting room door. "This had better be good," she groused while sitting herself in an empty chair.

Rita wilted at her tone while Cissy gave her a frown. "It is anything but good. Tell her where you're working now, Rita."

"Er… Nowhere, Mistress. They fired me early this morning."

"Fired you?" Rita was the  _Daily Prophet_ 's preeminent muck-raker; why would they fire her? Then again, now that Jen thought about it, she had seen fewer and fewer articles with Rita's name on them over the last several months. "Why?"

"The owner said it's because I'm sick and need to talk to the Mind Healers, but I think it's really because he wants the other reporters to steal my stories and he hates that I'm outsmarting them."

"And how are they trying to steal your stories?" prompted Cissy.

Rita glanced around before leaning closer toward them. "Patrick has been following me when I go talk to my sources, and I've had to undo the Listening Charms Kelsey keeps casting on my wall. But Christopher is the worst. I don't know how many of his eyes I've had to crush to stop him from watching me."

A slow blink, then she glanced over at her aunt. Cissy sat impassively, as if this all made perfect sense to her. "His eyes? Why are you crushing his eyes?"

"Because he keeps leaving them on my things," the reporter explained patiently. "And then he acts like he doesn't know what I'm talking about when I confront him about it. But I know it's him. I can see the eyes he has growing on his insides."

"Thank you, Rita. Jen, we need to talk outside."

"What in the Baron's name was that about?" Jen demanded once she had closed the door and thrown a silencing charm over it to keep the clearly mad woman from eavesdropping.

"I did some research on the  _Katoikidio Metatropi_  curse while we were waiting for you to arrive. It wasn't in the book you learned the spell from, but another book on enslavement magics explained what the problem is." Cissy shook her head. "That curse doesn't actually change the victim's personality or allegiances. It merely suppresses them. They are still there, and the more the victim is forced to do things she would not normally do, the more mental trauma is inflicted as the original personality and the curse come into conflict."

She grimaced. "Mental trauma?"

"Emotional instability. Hallucinations. Paranoid delusions." The piebald witch's smile was utterly without humor. "The damage is progressive and irreversible. Depending on what the person under the curse is forced to do, she goes completely insane in twelve to eighteen months."

"She's been under it since last September," Jen muttered. "Right in the middle of that timespan."

Cissy nodded. "In hindsight, her mind has been failing for several months. Her isolation from her colleagues is likely the only reason it has gone unnoticed until recently. Now, though? Something has to be done. The people who have been caught using these magics did so because their servants inevitably revealed enough information for law enforcement to determine who ensorcelled them."

"And we can't just erase her memory. The reason I chose that spell was so that no one could memory charm her to make her forget my order not to reveal my identity."

What had to be done was obvious to her and Cissy both. She had chosen to enslave Rita in order to turn the professional gossip-monger into an asset, but with this revelation, it was clear that the reporter had instead just been a liability of a different kind. "Did she give us any useful information while she was functional?" she asked. "You were her primary contact all this time."

"Nothing immediately actionable, but yes, she did find out a number of secrets we might profit from in the future. Some bad deals Kennewick has made, the true identity of Bradley's son, Callahan's criminal ties. There were also several rumors I can hire other people to follow up on." Her aunt smiled sadly. "For all that she is a problem for us now, she has been useful. I would even be open to keeping her close despite her madness did that not pose a risk to you."

Unfortunately, that still left the problem of how to rid themselves of Rita. She could not just disappear; if her psychosis had been as obvious as she feared it was, the mystery that left behind would further concern the  _Prophet_  staff. Leaving her body somewhere to be found would cause MLEP to become involved, and even if it was staged as a mugging or home invasion gone wrong, there was always the possibility that some clue would be found. Illness? The obvious signs could be faked, but anything that would kill an otherwise healthy woman that quickly would get the Healers in a frenzy, and Jen did not know enough medicine to dupe them.

Then again, maybe the answer was right in front of her.

Jen raised a hand and summoned a glass vial from deeper inside the house. Squeezing water from the air, she focused on what she could transfigure. Anything magical was beyond her abilities, but if she chose something mundane… She nodded and tapped the vial to transform the water into a white powder. Was this enough to work? After a moment's thought, she vanished the crystals, expanded the inside of the vial, and repeated her previous steps. Better to be sure.

Opening the door, she smiled at her soon-to-be ex-servant. "I agree with you that the other reporters were trying to spy on you, but I don't think it was for your stories." Rita looked at her quizzically. "I think they figured out you were working for someone and wanted to find out who."

"That's not possible! I kept our relationship a secret!"

"I know you did," she answered in a soothing voice, "but you spent all your time around people whose job is finding out people's secrets. We both should have known that someone was going to discover the truth sooner or later. That's my mistake just as much as it is yours. Thankfully, we have a solution to that problem. We need to make you disappear.

"In this vial is a derivative of Draught of Living Death. Tonight, I need you to write a suicide note, then dissolve this powder in water and drink all of it. When they find you, they will believe you to be dead and will soon stop investigating. Aunt Cissy and I will administer the antidote later, and since everybody will think you gone, you will be able to ferret out secrets with impunity."

Rita smiled as Jen handed over the vial she had filled with cyanide. With the Subservience Curse in full effect, she probably could have ordered the older witch to kill herself, but there was the slim possibility that if forced into that position, Rita's suppressed personality would fight hard enough to hint at the truth, which would defeat the entire point of the deception.

Besides, she was already murdering the woman. There was no reason to scare her in the process.

"Go home and start on the arrangements," Cissy ordered. "Anyone who investigates the matter should walk away without any doubts about what happened."

They watched Rita exit the Floo, and only then did Cissy step close enough to pull Jen into a hug. "That was masterfully done. But are you sure that poison will work?"

"With how much I gave her? Absolutely."

"Very well. It is distasteful, but this was necessary."

* * *

**END OF A LEGACY**

_It is with great sorrow that we here at the_ Daily Prophet _must announce the passing of one of our own. Rita Skeeter, age 45, was found dead in her Lincolnshire home yesterday afternoon. The Magical Law Enforcement Patrol has begun their preliminary investigation, but according to one source this reporter spoke to, the manner of death will almost certainly be ruled a suicide. A letter was found on Skeeter's bedside table wherein she expressed her regrets at the mistakes she felt she had made in her life and her fears that she had ruined her professional and personal relationships, and an empty vial that had presumably contained poison was found nearby._

_Rita is survived by her mother, Viola Skeeter, and her younger sister, Lucia Skeeter-Ball. We offer her family our condolences. She will be missed._

* * *

**The first scene is partly a reaction to what I felt was the weakest chapter in the entire series, the first chapter in book 6. Not only did it serve to spout off her personal philosophy that government by its very nature is totally incompetent at best and entirely corrupt and malfeasant at worst (a stance that I disagree with greatly, which should be obvious to anyone who's been paying attention to the scenes with Amelia or the DMLE), it also tried to make it look like the non-magical world was inherently inferior to its magical cousin. I say tried because when you have a canon population of all of 3,000 people that spent ten years in a state of civil war over whether an entire class of people should be slaughtered or enslaved because of who their parents are, that bar is set pretty damn low.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	17. Light, Dark, and Neither

**Disclaimer:**  Despite neither of them wanting the Death Eaters to win, was there ever any indication that the Ministry and the Order actually cooperated with each other? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 17  
** **Light, Dark, and Neither**

"This is what's so important?" Mad-Eye asked with a short glare at their unimpressive surroundings. "A dirt road in the middle of nowhere?"

"Just because something looks like nothing does not mean that it is. I should not have to tell you about the importance of looking past the surface."

The grizzled old Auror snorted as he followed Albus down the road. He knew quite well to be prepared for anything that might spring up; that was the reason he had chosen to get a prothetic eye that could see through walls rather than something that looked more normal. Right now, as far as he could see? There was nothing to be found anywhere around them. Little Hangleton was just another hamlet in the countryside, identical to hundreds of others.

Rather than point any of this out, he grunted, "What are we doing here? I'm all for hunting down something that can hurt Voldemort, but unless I know what I'm looking for, my time would be better spent on something productive."

"Patience, old friend. Patience." The elder of the two wizards continued down the road a ways before turning off of it onto a path than was nearly invisible behind the overgrown hedgerows. "We will arrive at our destination soon enough. Before that, I wanted to talk to you about something, away from the rest of the Order."

Mad-Eye focused both eyes on the man for a moment before returning his namesake to panning around the bush. After the Ministry's latest rebuff of the Order's intelligence report, not to mention Shacklebolt's suspicions that the Auror Office was intentionally keeping him in the dark about their wider campaign against the Death Eaters, maybe Albus had finally realized just how much damage his stance of moral superiority and unwillingness to work together was doing to their relationship with the Ministry? It was about time. "What's on your mind?"

"Elphias told me some troubling news the other day. Apparently, some of our own members are turning against us. They want us to bend our knees to the corruption and greed of the Ministry, to remove ourselves from the path of Light and righteousness and abandon our morals. What was the name he said they were calling themselves?" Albus muttered. "Oh, yes. The  _'Second Order'_."

Of course someone had called themselves that in front of the rest of the Order. He had told them to open the other members' eyes to Albus's short-sightedness, not make themselves out to be a splinter group! That was one of the biggest problems with fighting a war alongside civilians: absolutely no comprehension of operational security.

"He also said that you were their leader."

"Did I get some people together who don't think the sun shines out your arsehole?" he snarled when Albus turned around to look at him with a disappointed expression. "Yes, I did. I've tried to tell you that you're being a bloody idiot about the Ministry, but you won't listen. You've surrounded yourself with too many people who think every word that comes out of your mouth is Merlin's own truth. Doge, McGonagall, the Potters, the Weasleys, Lupin; I could go on.  _Someone_ needs to call you out on your mistakes, and if I'm not enough alone to do it, I'll get all the members of the Order I can to back me up. Maybe enough of us shouting the same thing at you will finally get the message through your thick skull."

Albus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose just below his half-moon glasses. He was using his left hand, Mad-Eye noticed; a roll of his electric blue eye proved that Albus's wand was clutched his right hand and hidden behind his back. Was Albus preparing to attack him for his 'betrayal'? To defend against an attack, as expected of a 'traitor'? "Why, Alastor? We have been friends for decades. Why would you turn your back on that?"

" _I_  turned my back on our friendship?" He could not help it. He laughed, the sound tinged with total disbelief. "You want to know why I got this little 'Second Order' together? It's because as far as I can tell, you won't be happy unless the entire country has either bowed before the glory of Albus Dumbledore or has been destroyed for being 'Dark'." Whatever mocking mirth was left vanished from his face and voice. "What's next, Albus? Will we have to 'prove our loyalty'? Kiss your robes? Tattoo a phoenix on our arms?"

"I would appreciate not being compared to Voldemort," Albus said in a voice of forced calm.

"Then stopping acting like you're reading from the same playbook! You think you're the only one with the knowledge or the intelligence to lead this fight. You refuse to work with the Ministry, who want the Death Eaters stopped just as much as we do, because they insist on being an ally instead of a follower. For Merlin's sake, you're treating a disagreement over your methods the same as if I had pulled up my sleeve and showed you the Dark Mark!" Lowering his voice again, he spat out, "You are behaving like just as much of an egomaniac as Voldemort, and you can't even see it."

"Everything I do is necessary to stop the Death Eaters. If I did not, they would conquer our world and burn it to the ground."

" _'Everything I do is necessary to stop the mudbloods. If I did not, they would conquer our world and burn it to the ground'_. Don't you hear yourself? That's the entire reason everything has gone wrong for you. The reason there was no international backlash when Fudge pulled you off the ICW without warning? Because your holier-than-thou attitude pushed away even our closest allies. The reason the country had no problems believing that you used mind magics on the students of Hogwarts? Because you have to be the smartest man in the room, no matter how little you know of what's going on around you. The reason the Ministry refuses to trust you and instead is keeping us at a distance? Because you wouldn't know cooperation if it was staring you in the face. The reason the Order is falling apart around you?" Mad-Eye shook his head. "Because despite what your sycophants have been telling you, you aren't as wise or as charismatic as you think you are. You made a whole host of enemies over the years, and now all those problems you've been ignoring are coming to a head. If you don't bend, you're going to be broken, and there's nothing I could do to help you even if I wanted to."

"You would rather watch our world fall into Darkness?" the stiff-necked wizard asked sadly.

"I'd watch the Order fall apart and lead the survivors to work alongside the DMLE. I wouldn't be happy about it, but if that was the only option I had left? I'd do it. I don't trust you enough to smooth over your mistakes anymore."

"What have I done to earn such enmity from you?" murmured Albus. "When I reformed the Order, you were willing to fight alongside me even when the Ministry refused to acknowledge the truth. Now, here we stand in opposition to one another. What has happened between us?"

"You messed with my cadets' heads while they were at Hogwarts, and you're talking like a madman. Either one would be reason enough for me to distrust you, and both together?"

The pair watched each other for a long moment; Mad-Eye had no idea what was going through Albus's head, but his own mind was busy examining and dismissing various tactics should this turn into the fight he worried it would. Finally, though, Albus let his shoulders slump and relaxed his grip on his wand. "Would I that we could trust each other as we once did."

"I just told you that you act like you're losing the plot, but I still came out here alone with you. From where I'm standing, that's being extremely trusting," he pointed out. "The Bludger's on your side of the pitch now."

"I suppose it is, isn't it?" The former headmaster turned and started walking again, deeper into the hedges. "Ever since Voldemort proved himself to still be alive in 1992, I have wondered how he managed to do so. The next year, following the incident of the Chamber of Secrets, I thought I knew, but still I was unsure. He could have used the method I believe he did, or perhaps what I held in my hands was something else, a simulacrum of sorts, but creating a duplicate that was self-aware as young Danny claimed would be impossible for any student, even one as brilliant as Voldemort. It must have been the true article."

"Quit dancing around the subject, Albus," he demanded. "What are you talking about?"

"The actual name is irrelevant"—Mad-Eye snorted; more likely, Albus was keeping it a secret so he could not find information about it on his own—"but it is incredibly Dark magic, even for an application of necromancy. It involves a wizard splitting his very soul in half through an act of cold-blooded murder and then binding that fragment of his self to a physical object. So long as it exists, he may return from death as many times as he wishes."

That would explain how the bastard came back after thirteen years, he admitted to himself with a nod. "So destroy the anchor, then he can be killed. He can't make another one once this is gone, can he?" he asked with sudden suspicion. "It won't do any good to spend the time destroying this now if he'll just make a new one and hide it in a different spot."

They rounded a corner to find a small house waiting abandoned for them, though the hovel could barely be seen through the trees growing wild all around it. "Once upon a time, I think he would have noticed its destruction, but if he still can after all the murders he has committed? I have my doubts." Albus's features twisted in hesitation for all of a moment, and he reluctantly added, "The real question is not whether he will notice this one is gone and replace it, but whether this is the only one. I cannot say for sure if he went through with it," the elder wizard explained, "but I have reason to believe that he at least considered making more."

"More of these things." Albus nodded. "Bollocks. That could be a problem."

"Indeed."

The pair reached the house, and Albus waved his wand. Nothing happened. "I did not expect summoning to work," he admitted ruefully, "but there was no reason not to try. It seems we must search for it." A jab vanished the door.

The earth beneath them boiled up in sudden fury, and Mad-Eye sprayed fire in a circle around them as snakes of all descriptions were set upon them. Vipers, adders, kraits, cobras, and more that he did not recognize. While he was otherwise occupied, Albus turned the ones that tried to come up from directly under their feet into dust, and several seconds passed before the trap was completely spent. "With manners like that, it's no wonder he became a Dark Lord," Mad-Eye muttered.

"Indeed. Even as a boy, he was far from gracious." Albus shook his head with a sigh. "If only I had known then just what kind of monster he would become. I think I would have left him in the Muggle world, honestly; he had already developed a decent grasp over his powers, but without instruction of some kind, those tricks would be all he ever explored. He would be safer to be around."

 _And he wouldn't be our problem_. Callous, yes, but when discussing the mass-murdering leader of a revolution, foisting him off on the Muggles would have saved all the wizards and witches he killed over the course of the wars. And, if Albus were right and he would not have had the skill he did now, he probably would have killed fewer people in total. Eying Albus, Mad-Eye asked, "And how does Potter and the prophecy fit into all this?"

Albus sighed. "As I told you – along with the rest of the Order – before, so long as Voldemort does not learn the contents, exactly what it says is irrelevant to our purposes. You were content with that explanation before."

"Content? No. I was just willing to let it lie. That was before you damaged my trust so thoroughly. I know you, Albus; you may be telling the truth about it being most important that Voldemort doesn't hear it, but you're making plans based on its contents nevertheless, and you haven't been doing so well in the planning department lately."

The white-haired wizard stepped into the shack, and the retired Auror followed and set his eye spinning around the single room. A fireplace, washtub, small cabinet, and low-set table with four stools sat to one side; on the other was a bed large enough to sleep three comfortably and a chest for clothing. Nothing Mad-Eye himself would want to put a chunk of his soul in, that was for sure.

"Check that side," Albus ordered, waving a hand at the sleeping half of the building. "Knowing him, it will be something ornate or valuable. He always did like 'collecting' his little treasures."

Not knowing why that phrasing disturbed him so, Mad-Eye very carefully expected the contents of the chest before opening it.

"The prophecy…." Albus began. "It says that a child would be born at the end of the seventh month, one that was capable of defeating Voldemort. The  _only_ one capable of doing so."

"If Potter is supposed to be the one to save us, he's got a long way to go."

"I am aware. I have also kept in mind that it is not a moral choice to push a boy into fighting our wars for us. If he sought out the conflict of his own accord, it is one thing, but I must not force him into it. Alas, I now worry about how capable he is of such a task. There are methods available to grant him an advantage, but none of them are…" A grimace swept over Albus's face. "…palatable."

Looking over, Mad-Eye nodded to himself. "What aren't you telling me? You're still hiding something." A thought crossed his mind, and suddenly all the pieces came together to form a coherent whole. "This has something to do with the Black girl, doesn't it? That's why you were so suspicious of her while I was teaching. She was the only one you asked me to keep a discreet eye on, even when there were known children of Death Eaters running around causing problems. You didn't know she was the Lestrange bitch's, not then, but there was something you did know."

A long, tense minute passed in silence. "I knew she was James's child," Albus admitted, "and the prophecy actually revealed  _two_  children who were capable of being the One. The first, marked by Voldemort, who would be raised by the Light. Another, filled with hate and cruelty, who would side with the Dark. Danny and Black."

"And just like after you defeated Grindelwald, whichever one defeats him will have all the fame and glory he or she could want," he cut in as he caught on to Albus's plan. Just because he did not like politics and preferred to keep his boots on the street – one of the reasons Amelia had been chosen as Director of the DMLE rather than him; he never  _wanted_  to go into an administrative position – did not mean he could not understand it. "If Potter defeats Voldemort, he's the hero that everyone listens to, a mouthpiece who will forward your own goals. On the other hand, if Black wins, suddenly all that power goes into the hands of someone who doesn't like you and has a totally opposite ideology. All those successes you've had over the years disappear in one fell swoop."

"I would never treat Danny as a simple tool in the Wizengamot. He would make his proposals and cast his votes based on his own conscience," Albus denied, a meaningless distinction since Potter the Elder was one of his biggest supporters and devotees and the boy was just like his old man. "But yes, if Black should be the victor, our nation will abandon all the progress we have made over the last fifty years. Do you really expect me to stand aside and just let that happen?"

"Not my business." Tonks had all but admitted the youngest Black was a dark witch, but she had also denied that the girl planned to take over the world. He had found Black to be a selfish little chit that one year he had spent at Hogwarts, but she was a teenager; everyone was convinced the world revolved around them at that age. Between Tonks and Albus, he knew who he trusted more, even if she were anything but impartial on this, and that made his decision for him. Unless he caught wind there might be a Dark Lady Black starting up trouble in a decade or two, he'd keep his nose out of it.

Albus pulled his arm from inside the chimney and shook his head. "It has to be here. This was a meaningful place for him. Why wouldn't he hide it here? Alastor, rip up the floors. He must have buried it."

Two spells tore the rough wooden boards out from under them, but what was revealed was flattened dirt. There was no sign that anything was hidden here.

"This what we came for?" Mad-Eye grunted, unimpressed with their little venture. A good hour, completely wasted. "A bunch of nothing?"

"I know it was here. He must have moved it."

The disfigured wizard scoffed and walked away. Maybe there was something there once; maybe it was all an act of Albus's. He did not know, and honestly? He had better things to worry about.

* * *

" _Resilie carpe retractum_."

The glowing orange thread shot from Filius's wand, bounced off the stone wall, flew over the nearby wall sconce, and lashed itself tightly around his attacker's ankle. Miss Black barely had time to blink before a twitch of his wand reeled the magicked rope back in, which in turn flung her face-first into the floor and ungraciously dragged her along with it. A flick of his wand covered her in a light coating of frost. "That's my win, my dear."

"You don't have to sound so proud of it," the sixth-year muttered as she hastily brushed off the ice. "What's our score, again? A thousand to nought?"

"I doubt it is that many. Five hundred, maybe." She scoffed and stood, and he conjured chairs for both of them. "Even that is nothing to disparage. You have, on occasion, fallen for the same trick twice, but never thrice. Once I run out of new strategies, I expect that you will quickly start evening the score." He smiled brightly and bounced a couple of times in his chair in his excitement. "Just between us, I've actually had to go to a few matches on the weekends to get more ideas to keep ahead of you in these lessons."

Miss Black shot a doubtful glance at him, but it was absolutely true. She had a natural talent for dueling, and between what he was teaching her and her own studies of combative and dark magics, the knowledge gap between them was rapidly crumbling into nothing. Soon enough, the only advantage he would have was sheer experience, but that was less comforting that it sounded when he kept in mind that she had already faced off against a Dark Lord five times her age and had stayed on even footing the entire time.

"You're going to duels, and you haven't been inviting me?" she eventually asked in a displeased tone.

He shrugged, his smile revealing his embarrassment. "These weren't the professional duels like those I used to compete in. Do you remember how I said that there were underground fight clubs on Knockturn Alley?" That got a sharp smile out of her. "I doubt your family would allow you to go with me, and the people there are not the kind a young lady should be exposed to."

"You'd be surprised just what kinds of people I have been exposed to over the years, Professor."

That was a comment he was not going to touch with a ten-foot pole. Casting about for a different conversation topic, his mind alighted on an idle curiosity that had been fluttering about in his head ever since the summer. "I read in the  _Prophet_  that you are one of the young women who started looking for suitors this year." She nodded absently. "And yet, I recall the complaints you had last year, the ones that were the result of you sleeping with other witches while you were dating Miss Lovegood." The nod this time was slower and warier, and he gave her a friendly shrug. "I just can't help but wonder how the two of you are working through all this."

"Not well or easily," she groused. "She knows I need to see this through. Not only am I the heir of my House, I am the only person who can continue our line. Aunt Cissy, Aunt Andi, Dora; none of them bear the name Black. Sirius is sterile. If I bear a bastard child, little though I myself care about it, our enemies would pounce on it. Two illegitimately born heirs?" She shot up from the chair and started pacing in front of him. "It would start people talking, you know. Inevitably my own sudden appearance would be put under greater scrutiny, and someone would remember that the goblins practice blood magic. Rumors would start that I am not actually a Black, that I'm some random girl the Blacks dressed up as their heir to keep the House from going extinct."

"Which, technically speaking, you are," he pointed out helpfully.

"That's why I can't have people poking around!" she snarled back at him. "Once my heritage is in question, it will give the Potters firm ground on which to build their case. People will listen to their claims that I'm their daughter, will believe them. Then come hearings, interrogations, accusations. A Halfblood dressing herself up as a Pureblood and, even worse, an heir to a House in the Wizengamot? My family, my  _real_  family, will all be shoved into prison for Line Theft; Dora might escape that fate,  _maybe_ , but the Aurors would toss her out on her ear even if they couldn't prove that she knew about it. A family whose history traces back to the eighth century, possibly even back as far as the days of Merlin and Morgan and Camelot, declared extinct.

"And I?" The girl threw her head back and laughed out loud, the sound cold and brittle and bitter. "If I didn't spend a few decades in Azkaban, too, I would be forced to go back to those… those… Baron-be-damned moronic gobshites who threw me away when I was a toddler! If you were told you had to leave the Wizarding World and live the rest of your life with the goblins, what would you do?!" she demanded.

His answer was immediate and final. "I'd kill every single person who thought they could get away with trying it." His relationship with his grandfather's species was abominable – they were more condemning of their 'half-breeds' than even the worst of the blood-purists – and it had been made clear to him, as it had been to his mother before him, that he was not one of them and never would be, and the punishment for non-goblins trying to sneak into their world and 'spy on their culture' was death. As far as he was concerned, that was fine. He wanted nothing to do with them, either.

"Exactly!" Miss Black sighed and plopped wearily back in her seat. "I'm not going to let that happen. Right now, people respect and fear what I'm capable of. I killed a dragon, am Bellatrix's daughter, fought Voldemort one-on-one and stayed alive. They don't  _want_  to dig too deeply. As long as I never let their suspicions outweigh those fears, I – we – will stay safe. So yes, I'm accepting suitors. I will choose one of them to be my contracted husband. I will have a legitimate child by him. And even though she's too insane for anyone to believe her anyway, I will breathe a sigh of relief when Bellatrix is killed and cannot deny that I am her daughter."

She panted lightly at the end of her diatribe, and Filius kept silent for a moment to allow her to regain her emotional equilibrium. That rant had the sound of one that had been building for many months now. "You said Miss Lovegood knows that you need to do this. Does she know why?"

"No, she doesn't." The brunette let out a long sigh. "My friends all believe more or less the same story about my heritage that we released to the  _Prophet_. Admitting that it was a complete fabrication now would be… awkward."

"More awkward than her girlfriend courting a number of wizards behind her back?"

Nothing was said in answer, and he leaned forward with a groan and braced his elbows on his knees. Dueling with her was enjoyable, no doubt about that, but it unfortunately made sure he knew that he was getting older. "Would you like some advice?"

"Can't cause any more problems."

"As I see it, there are three options available to you for dealing with this. One, you try to keep going as you have. Continue your relationship, continue your courting, and continue pushing your relationship and your friendship with Miss Lovegood to the breaking point. Eventually, it  _will_  snap, and the resulting emotional injuries will be painful for everybody even peripherally involved. Two, make your choice and stop looking for a husband so you can commit yourself to her fully." She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand. "There will be problems socially with that, both because it is not a traditional relationship and because any children you have to continue your line will be illegitimate as a matter of necessity, but while I am not a member of high society – for obvious reasons – I doubt they will be quite as bad as you are imagining."

"Plans based on optimism never turn out well," she retorted.

"True, but borderline paranoia is not realism, either. Your third option…." He shook his head. "Again, make the choice. If continuing your family's legacy is that important to you, do the proper thing and make a clean break with Miss Lovegood. It is not right to her to string her along like this, nor is it right to you."

Miss Black muttered something unintelligible to herself before brushing her hair out of her face. "Do you have a good option in there somewhere? Something I might actually like?"

"Not every problem has a nice, tidy answer. You should know this well enough by now," he replied with a weak smile.

"Well, on a completely different subject, I need a permission form for the Restricted Section," she said. "There's a book I need to prepare for my Dark Arts Proficiency, but I can't even browse them without showing Pince proof that it's been approved."

Accepting the obvious segue, he prompted, "I know we have a number of books on the darker aspects of magic in case the NEWT-level Defense Against the Dark Arts students need to look something up, but I'm not sure exactly what those texts cover. I was more concerned by that point with the finer points of dueling than facing off against monsters or Dark Lords. What information are you looking for?"

"Advanced scrying magics," she replied with an odd, almost distant smile, "specifically water scrying. I read about some manners of scrying that allow you to use all your senses rather than just sight and hearing, but that text wasn't entirely clear as to the details…."

* * *

Several days of haunting the Restricted Section passed before Jen felt ready to give this plan a try. There was indeed a method of scrying that should allow her to use her sonar to sense her surroundings, something her normal scrying made impossible, but unfortunately for her, that method was not exactly safe. Any magic that was said to only be possible upon reaching  _'the glimmer of blackest sleep'_  was not something she wanted to experiment with on her own, even if she did have Death's favor.

Thankfully, there was someone she could recruit to give her a hand.

She slipped through the stacks in the library to where her friends had gathered together to study for Charms, the only class all seven of them shared. "Hey, Tracey? Can I borrow you for a few minutes?"

"Sure. Give me a second." Once all her things were packed, the chestnut-haired Slytherin walked up and followed Jen as she left the library toward a room she had prepared. "Where are we going? Since you want me, I'd assume this was House business–related, but there's little reason we couldn't have done that in the library under privacy charms."

"No, it isn't politics."

Tracey blinked. "Okay. So why pick me? If it's not politics…."

The swift inhalation told her when her best friend had put the pieces together, and she nodded. "There's some dark magic I need to perform," she whispered. "It is related to House business, sort of. I need to find something, and while I know how to scry, what I'm looking for is warded against it. I'm hoping I can peer through those charms using this technique, but I need someone to keep an eye out and make sure nothing goes wrong. That would be… bad."

The rest of the journey passed in silence. Unlocking a door, she led Tracey into the room she had prepared earlier. She closed the door and locked it again, and then she pulled her robes off her shoulders and let them fall to the ground.

"…Didn't you tell me once that you wouldn't hit on me?" Tracey asked delicately while trying not to look at her naked body.

"No, I believe what I actually said was that if I did flirt with you, you would know it." Watching the other girl's face crumple, she could not help the laugh that spilled out. "Don't worry, Trace. I'm not trying to drag you into my bed."

"Thank Merlin. No offense to you, but girls just aren't my type."

"Not that you don't look delectable, of course," Jen added with an exaggerated licking of her lips. Tracey just rolled her eyes, but the small smile told a different story. "On to the scrying. It's called immersion scrying, and like the name implies, I need to be completely submerged for it to work."

"Okay." Watching Jen walk past her to sit in the conjured tub that had already been filled with water, Tracey asked, "So what do I need to do?"

"Not much. Just pull me out if I stop breathing for too long."

"Stop breathing what?!"

Jen dropped her head backwards and under the surface of the water. The glimmer of blackest sleep. The edge between life and death. She could do this. She blew out the air in her lungs.

Then she breathed in.

A paralysis spell stopped the spasms that came as her body fought against her to try to get to air. She needed to balance on that edge, and she could not do that if she kept breaking the surface for a breath. Shadows started to encroach on the edge of her vision, and through her half-closed eyes she could see little specks of silvery white light dancing in the darkness. Dancing, floating….

Glimmering….

The black engulfed her, but then the misty shadows cleared enough to see a swarm of fireflies hovering far away in front of her. No, not in front of her.  _Below_. She was floating in the air, and the sparks below her were the lights of numerous cities. This was the view of Britain and France during the deepest hours of night, for not even then was everything asleep.

But she was not doing this to enjoy the view. She had a job to do.

Drifting down toward the earth, she threw her sonar far and wide. She did not have to feel textures and shapes, not with this view. All she needed to look for was the burning touch of white magic. Scrying for the Turk himself was impossible now that he was surrounding himself with Marduk's power, but that should, if everything went right, be what let this work. She could not find  _him_ , but if she could find echoes of his magic, she would have locations for Priest and Menagerie to search.

The alternative was to create an entirely new ritual to scry for him. None of Elsie's books described anything like what she needed.

Coming closer, she smiled when she finally did feel heat pricking uncomfortably in her mind. Two points of similar strengths, fairly close together, just north and north-west of the lights shining from Greater London. Far to the west, probably in Devon, a weaker one. Thinking about it, that was probably the fields and orchards of Ottery St. Catchpole, where she knew light magic was called up every Christmas Eve. Continuing in that direction lay the weakest speck somewhere in northern Cornwall. North from London, halfway to the Scottish border in Leicestershire, was the strongest piece of white magic she had come across, though its heat seemed… almost diffuse, in a way. She had no way of knowing what that meant, but it was something for them to check.

Idly curious, she started looking for cold spots. London, of course, where the Blacks' townhouse stood. Cardiff, again obviously. Birmingham. The very tip of Cornwall. North nearly to Scotland, County Durham or North Yorkshire. Only five points of dark magic, equal to those of the light? That was unacceptable. Someone would have to do something about that.

She pulled back and drifted away from the world. Now that she knew where the light magic was, she could… do something with it. Why did she want to do this, again? Someone wanted to know… or did she want that? Her reasons were all becoming fuzzy, and she knew that was a bad sign, but why it was bad? That she was not sure of.

She did have the information, though, so she supposed she could return to her body, which she had left… somewhere. Feeling around, she found a thin thread leading from her into the distance, and with nothing better to do, she followed it. She hurtled over the English countryside, past the lights of Glasgow and Edinburgh, over the mountains of the Cairngorms. Down she fell, toward a glassy black lake and a brightly lit castle. Through a rapidly approaching window, she could make out two figures; as she came even closer, she saw that one of them was a girl with reddish-brown hair, and she was pulling another girl, this one black-haired and naked, out of a bathtub.

Well, that was rude of her. What if the second girl was enjoying her bath?

The first girl threw the second onto the ground and kissed her. No, not a kiss, she decided as the girl then started to press down on the naked one's breastbone; that girl must have drowned. Poor thing. But why was she still coming closer? She was trying to get to her body….

 _Ah_ , she thought as the dark-haired girl's face took up the entirety of her vision,  _maybe this is my_ —

A thought snapped the paralysis curse she had laid on herself, and Jen flipped over and coughed as water poured from her mouth and nose. And poured, and poured. Her lungs were completely saturated.

Dimly, she became aware of Tracey smacking her shoulder repeatedly. Nor was it to help, either, if the expression of furious terror were any indication. "Jennifer Black, how dare you do that to me?!" her best friend shrieked, each word punctuated with another slap. "I did not spend all this time dealing with your weirdness just to watch you kill yourself!"

She raised her arm and tried to catch Tracey's striking hand. It took a few attempts, which she was sure did not help matters. "I wasn't killing myself," she rasped. "This is how immersion scrying works. It's not as bad as it looks."

Not as bad so long as she ignored the disturbing sensation of her sense of self rapidly flaking away, at least.

"That doesn't make it better!"

Jen pushed herself into a sitting position and cast a drying charm on herself. Her lungs and throat needed healing desperately, but there was no way she was going to use a healing curse while she was soaked like this. She would go from being drowned to being frozen solid, not much of an improvement in her opinion. "It is what it is." Now that she was mostly dry, she dropped the previous spell for healing, and her voice returned to normal. "Besides, do you really think, if I wanted to commit suicide, I'd invite you along to be a witness? Or do it by drowning? It'd be a lot less painful to throw myself off the Astronomy Tower."

"Not. Helping." Putting away her snarl with difficulty, Tracey demanded, "Did whatever you were doing succeed, or was this all for bloody nothing?"

She thought back to what she had felt during her scrying. Five areas of white magic, and she thankfully remembered where each of them was, though she would need to write it all down to make sure she did not forget. "Oh, it worked, all right." Grabbing Tracey's arm, she pulled the other girl into a damp embrace. "It worked  _perfectly_."

"That's great. Let go of me." Her friend tugged and pulled until she let her escape, and the Slytherin finished off the task of drying them both. Throughout all of that, her glare never wavered. "Never,  _ever_  ask me to do anything like this again."

"Fine, I won't ask you to do anything like this ever again as long as you live," she replied facetiously. "Now help me up, will you? I have a letter I need to send."

* * *

**In Jen's defense, the book she read made no mention of losing her sense of self if she went immersion scrying. It also, however, assumed she had experience with hydromancy and wasn't jumping straight into the deep end.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	18. Extinction Event

**No disclaimer today. Nothing in canon really** _**fits** _ **this chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter 18  
** **Extinction Event**

"You really think this is where he's hiding?" Jen asked her companions. "It looks a little… less than subtle."

The three black mages hovered in the sky just outside a large compound, Jen's magic supporting her whereas Priest and Menagerie sat on a flying carpet the African wizard had brought with him. The property itself was still busy despite the late hour: numerous people wandered the grounds, the children running around in the snow without a care for the cold while the adults preferred to huddle around the large bonfires scattered about, though they were still outdoors rather than in their houses. The joy of having just ten days until Christmas was obviously greater than the cold or darkness of a winter's night.

It was the exact kind of place she would choose to hide within were she in the Turk's position, but to be fair, she would happily risk collateral damage if it increased her chances of safety. Avatars of the Light Powers were not supposed to be so callous.

"This is where you say you found the largest amount of light magic, is it not?" Priest asked. "Here he would feel the safest, especially so close to the winter solstice. Just as we are powerless on the shortest night of the year, so too will the Turk be vulnerable on the longest."

"Besides, we already checked the other places." Menagerie rubbed her hands against a few of her tattoos, and Jen looked over to find that those images were fidgeting in excitement. "The buildings near London had the same kind of setup that flat did, but they were empty. Same for the two other places. Process of elimination."

Priest nodded. "We questioned a local wizard. He said that the Buckleys, the people who live here, keep to themselves and do not appreciate others poking around. Few people would think to look here for a stranger, and if he managed to convince them to make an exception for him – undoubtedly by appealing to their obvious support of the Light Powers – that would fit his preference for hideaways."

"Buckley, Buckley," she repeated, tasting the word. "Why does that name sound so familiar?"

"I believe you have said that your family is heavily invested in politics. Are they an ally or opponent?"

She shook her head. "No, it's not a Wizengamot family, and I don't think it was the name of one of my mentor's repeat clients. I must have heard it at school somewhere, but for the life of me, I can't remember why.

"I suppose it can't be that important."

"Are we going to have to sneak around again, or can we just jump straight to the fun stuff?" Menagerie demanded of her partner. "The solstice is coming up, and I haven't reached my quota."

Quota?

"You know the answer to that," he replied. "If we capture one of them, we may interrogate him or her about the Turk's location. After that? We will have to see."

"Fine, fine." The pair began their descent, Jen drifting along behind them. It meant she was perfectly safe when golden lightning appeared from nowhere and struck Priest in the chest and the arm when he shielded Menagerie.

"What the hell?!" the Greek witch demanded as she took control of the carpet and pulled them away from the now white-hot boundary of a previously unremarkable ward. "White magic wards?! This isn't the Turk's magic! Is there another one?!"

Jen did not have time to ponder the question. The sudden light show had alerted the residents, and the children were streaming into their houses while the adults either joined them or raised their wands. The pockets of mages shined silver, and then animals forged from moonlight took to the air and stampeded toward the avatars.

"Cry havoc and let slip the Patroni of war," she muttered to herself.

A groan preceded Priest pushing himself to an upright position. "That does not look good. Menagerie? I do believe stealth has failed us."

"About time." Ink burst from her arms and back before turning into monsters, and the winged beasts flew into battle with the totems that approached. "Queen! White magic wards have to be bound to something of the Power's! Find it and break it!"

"That'd be easier if I knew what I was looking for!" she yelled back even as she dived. The Turk had kept his enchanted bottles of water around the perimeter of his flat; maybe this white mage had done the same? If so, it would have to be something hidden inside the hedges that surrounded the property.

Some of the magical totems split off from the rest of the pack, and these turned to pursue her. That was not what she needed right now. Taking a chance, Jen conjured a fistful of cursed fire and hurled the blue and white flames at the animals. She hoped that the collision of light and dark magic would cause them both to be eradicated.

No such luck. Cursed fire was not as strong as its big brother Fiendfyre, or maybe the Patronus Charm was somehow protected from Fiendfyre's ability to consume matter and magic, but either way, the totemic spirits charged through the flames unscathed. Starting to get a little desperate, she flung a finishing charm charged with hate and dark magic, but while she made the lead stallion's form waver for a moment, it was not enough to deter it from rushing into and through her.

Jen screamed as her entire was set alight. At least, that was what it felt like. Any injuries she had just received, she knew, were completely disproportionate to the pain currently wracking her body.

She tumbled from the sky and landed heavily on the hard-packed ground, managing to avoid injuring herself by pure luck. Shakily getting to her feet, she glared at the Patroni that now circled her. She had to find some way to keep these things away from her or, even better, destroy them. If she did not, she would be a sitting duck for the Turk.

The horse pawed the ground aggressively, and throwing its head back in a silent cry, it rushed at her once again. A twist of her wrist created a stone wall in front of the beast. She half-expected it to slip through her barrier like a ghost, but to her surprise, it jerked out of the way and ran around.

That was a nice discovery, but she still had to contend with nearly a dozen creatures of light magic pouncing upon her. A circular wall sprang into existence between her, and them, and when they rose into the sky to jump over her defenses, she pulled the stone higher and nearer. Soon she was encased in a spherical shell, a hole at the top too small for even the tiniest of the Patroni to fit through her only source of fresh air.

 _Well, this is inconvenient_ , she thought. What options were available to her? Physical defenses worked, surprising though that was, but if Patroni could ignore cursed fire, it was possible that they would slip through a purely magical shield. She could possibly wrap conjured glass around herself so she could see out while keeping the spirits away, but that would prevent her from taking a proactive role in the fight. No one had ever developed a counter to the Patronus Charm; there had never been any incentive to do so, and with the known arithmantic formula a tiny fraction of what was there—

Except she did not  _need_  a completed formula, did she? When the stallion had gone through her, it came near enough that she felt the structure of the spell with her sonar. Much of it was garbled nonsense, too light for her to make out in any useful detail, but its core was composed of normal, neutral magic. That was what gave it its cohesion; the light magic was more or less a shell, something to give the spell its ability to scare off Dementors and lethifolds and black mages. If she left the light magic portions alone and instead created a counter just to the core, some spell that would interact with it and cancel it out….

With a nod, she let her power twist and distort itself as she sculpted it into the appropriate form. Sparks flashed when she pulled her magic to nudge  _these_ threads apart and bent it so it would tug  _that_  one out of position. A long minute passed, but then she collapsed the dome to reveal the totems that had taken up a watchful guard around her self-created prison. The horse barely had time to look at her before she flung her hand out, a jet of orange light streaking between them.

The Patronus crumpled into itself and vanished in a puff of glimmering mist.

Now the tables had turned, and she spun in circles to throw her anti-Patronus spell at each of her pursuers. Only once they had all been eradicated did she turn her attention to the hedge. This was her real challenge: what had they bound these wards to? Enoch bequeathed no white magic. Marduk, as she already knew, would be limited to wind, lightning, or water, and of the three, water was the easiest. There was no moat here that she could see, however, and wind or lightning would have to be contained for them to have any effect. Anchors for the Seelie Queen's boons could be anything. Aatxe would probably require statues of youthful heroes. Holda….

Oh. In hindsight, it was fairly obvious.

She sprayed the hedges with cursed fire and watched them catch like tinder. Holda, Mother Earth, the patron for the white magic of phyturgy. The anchor for the ward was not hidden inside the plants; it  _was_  the plants. Now that the bushes were burning with unquenchable flame, she returned to the air, her hands occupied with killing the Patroni in her path. "The ward should come down in a minute," she told her allies as she approached and then passed them. "Keep them busy. I want to try something."

The way wards were constructed, they needed something to serve as a foundation. Generally, that was a large stone, granite or marble if the person designing the defenses could afford it, but they could also be tied to circles around the object meant to be protected or even built on top of a pre-existing ward. In the latter case, the stronger the base ward, the stronger the wards on top of it, which meant that the Buckleys had probably built their compound's wards off of the white magic ward surrounding them. It was hard to get more powerful than black and white magic.

They most likely did not expect the avatars of Darkness to conquer their defenses, but Jen did not know if they had all run into their houses in order to escape through the Floo or. If not, they would do so as soon as someone realized that the wards had fallen, and that would leave no one to interrogate. She needed to keep that from happening, which would turn this entire fight into a waste of time.

Skimming the surface of the wards, she reached the apex and used her finger to paint the air with iridescent color. She mostly used her runic casting with Futhark, the language she knew best, but she needed strength right now, and of all runic languages, Egyptian was the best for wards. A slithering serpent and an elaborate rectangle together created a barrier that would prevent teleportation of any form, and after a moment's thought, she added a falcon and an ostrich's feather. That should keep those already here from sending out any further warnings of what was happening. Her magic pulsed, and two palings sprang into existence.

Another thirty seconds passed before she felt the heat of the wards give out. Too much of the hedge had been destroyed to support it any longer. Pulling her arms and legs together, she let herself fall toward the wizards and witches on the ground. Bolts of orange and pale green slew the recreated Patroni and the casters alike. Priest and Menagerie were quick to chase her, and soon the air sang with the sounds of death. Their impenetrable protections destroyed, the Buckleys standing guard were no match for three merciless killers.

Menagerie was the first to storm the nearest house, two three-headed dogs whose bodies had been stretched out like rats' flanking her. "Where are they?" the pinkette screeched a few seconds later.

The house was empty of people. A fire burned in the fireplace, but there was no sign of Floo powder on the mantel, so they had not escaped that way, and if they had decided to teleport away, why run into the house first? Grab the kids and go. Leaving Priest to calm his partner's enraged ranting, Jen drifted through the house, her sonar doing a better job of scouring her surroundings for clues than her eyes ever could. The rooms were all messy, but in most of them, it was the chaos of a small child or two living there. Only a few rooms held the subtle differences that came from panicked flight: toys and belongs kicked against the walls to get them out of the way, fresh dings from a door being slammed open. She followed the trail as it led her through the hallways to what she presumed was the parents' bedroom, and from there… yes, from there they ran to the closet. The closet that she could see from here held no one.

But if they were not there, why did all the signs point to them having run there?

She walked nearer, and only once she got close enough could she feel it. There was a tunnel hidden near the base of the wall, one that had to twist space on its way to its destination considering that wall was the one that separated the closet from the hallway she had just walked through.

"Priest! Menagerie!" The pair came at her call, and she motioned them over and pointed out the opening. "Think they took off through there?"

The dark-skinned wizard nodded. "I would expect so. We need to scout it out and make sure there is no one laying in wait to attack us while we crawl. Menagerie, if you would be so kind?"

The conjoined canines ran up and scrambled into the hole.

Jen was quick to follow, her flesh melting into that of a cat's. The tunnel was not very long, little more than a dozen feet, and to her slight surprise, the parents huddled in the center of the panic room were more concerned with comforting their children than watching for any attackers sneaking inside. Did they expect that the wards would keep them so safe that they needed nothing more than to make a token attempt at escaping? They all screamed in terror when the monsters charged out and sprinted in a circle around them, strong jaws keeping anyone from breaking away from the group and running to safety. Slipping into the room herself, she returned to human form and waved her hands. All the wands the parents held flew from their grasps and hovered in the air in front of her, and another gesture cut off their routes of escape by blocking the other openings behind a waist-high wall of ice.

Trapped like rats they may be, but being disarmed should keep them from doing anything stupid.

Some grunts came from the only open tunnel before Menagerie poked her head out. "This all of them?" she demanded while climbing to her feet.

"Considering all the tunnels? Should be," Jen replied, letting her eyes wander over the assembled Buckleys. Gathered here was a large group of people, a substantial proportion of whom were children of various ages. There had not been that many adults who stayed on the grounds to fight them, so that meant either some of the Buckleys – perhaps the young adults who were single or had not yet had children of their own? – had taken the opportunity to leave and alert the DMLE, which meant they were working on borrowed time, or the white magic of the wards had increased their fecundity. Perhaps it was because of the genetic defects she had taken on with her adoption, but the former option honestly angered her less than the latter.

The Grecian witch gave her a ghastly grin. "Excellent."

"Contain yourself," warned Priest, walking past them and stopping in front of the crowd. "Everyone! We are looking for one particular individual, a Middle-Eastern white wizard. We know one of you is or plans to harbor him here in this compound. Tell us where he is, and we will erase your memories of this and leave you in peace. Try to hide him, and the night will become much less fun."

"Speak for yourself," Menagerie cut in with a roll of her eyes. "I'd prefer it if they acted stubborn."

"What are you talking about?!" one old man demanded. A young woman, likely an adult granddaughter or even great-granddaughter but possibly just an extremely young wife, grabbed his elbow and tried to pull him back. "Harboring someone? The only strangers here are you! You come here, attacking us for no reason, asking about white wizards of all things—"

Priest interrupted, "If that is how you wish this to go, so be it. Menagerie." He took a step to the side and swept his arm from her to the huddle of bodies. "The stage is yours."

"About time." She swaggered up, the tip of her wand tapping repeatedly against her bottom lip. "Let's see…. No, no, no, no, no…. You!"

A jab of her wand yanked a little boy from his mother's arms and out of the protective circle. It was a surprise when she cut the summoning charm off before the boy was more than halfway to her, but the reason why became obvious. As soon as he fell to the ground, a scaled leonine monstrosity hurtled out of Menagerie's abdomen and dug its long claws and longer fangs into his flesh. It absolutely savaged him, ripping and tearing for several seconds before hopping backwards to let the Buckleys see his broken body, and then it jumped in again to continue its gristly task.

It was a long thirty seconds before the boy stopped screaming and moving, and then the only sound in the room was his mother and father's wails of grief.

Menagerie clapped her hands together, looking for all the world like a little girl who had just received the pony she always wanted. This time it was a slightly older girl who was chosen, maybe five years old as opposed to the boy's three, and she hung in the air screaming while the beast stared up at her and licked the blood off its jowls. "Let's try this again! Where's the Turk?"

Jen turned away when the screams started again. There was a better way to do this. She summoned the old man to her, a silencing charm cutting off his accusations or denials before he could make them. "Don't try to fight me," she ordered him. "If you fight, it will take me longer to search your mind. The sooner we get what we want, the fewer of your family has to die."

That stopped his twitches in their tracks, and he just stared at her before giving a single swift nod of his head. She smiled softly in reply and bored through his eyes with her mental probes. They tore his thoughts apart as they dug deeper and deeper, gentleness abandoned for speed, but the more she rooted through his memories, the stonier her expression grew. Where was it?! They knew the Turk was here, but why did this man – the Buckleys' Head of House, no less – not know a thing about him?!

Except…. They did not  _know_  the Turk was hiding here. They had assumed he was, but assumptions were not the same as knowledge. This entire venture had been a waste of time, and all these deaths? Utterly pointless.

She pulled her mind out of his head and looked dispassionately at his slack face. She knew going in that with how rough she was, he was probably going to die, but she expected he had known the same. He was willing to give his own life to protect the rest of his family, and she could respect that decision even though she personally valued her own safety above the rest of the Blacks'. Dropping his corpse to the floor, she shook her head and walked past her sadistic colleague. In the course of her search, Menagerie had killed three more children, and several adults in the crowd were sporting bloodied or even missing limbs from where one of the three-headed-dogs had bitten them, presumably because they had attempted to save their children.

Menagerie had been more courteous to her since the attack on the Turk's flat, but that did not mean the Greek wizard would listen when she said to stop. Taking the unholy glee of her expression into account, Jen would be lucky if Menagerie did not sic a monster or two on her.

Priest was methodically working his way through the Buckleys' wands, tucking those that fit him well enough into the belt of his suit and throwing away those that did not. "They really don't know anything about the Turk," she told him when she got close enough. "He was never here. You must have just missed him at one of the other locations."

"Are you sure the man whose mind you raped would have been in a position to know for sure one way or another?"

"He was their Head of House. He would have known."

Sighing loudly, the wizard stood. "That is a disappointment. I was sure he was here."

"So was I, but he's not. Get her to stop so I can vanish the mess and modify their memories, and we'll go look at the other places again."

"That I cannot do." She stared at him in confusion. "Black rituals all demand something from those working them. I suppose the Gatekeeper asks for death?"

"Yes, but I don't see—"

"The Grand Wyrm has her own demands. In order to earn her goddess's magics, Menagerie must make an offering of pain and fear. This is one reason I will not interfere in her harvest of torment," he told her.

Jen crossed her arms and stared intently at him. "If that's one reason, what's the other?"

"Have you listened to her complaints?" He gave her a friendly smile. "I can keep her from killing everyone we come across, but when she finally gets started, it is safer to step back and let the carnage run its course. Once there is no one left to torture, she will be agreeable to departing." His statement was punctuated with a helpless little shrug, as if he was asking her  _'What can you do?'_.

Disgust hit her like the Hogwarts Express. She was fine with killing when it was necessary, even if it offered a concrete benefit, but this? There was no point to this. Fear and pain could be obtained without a senseless massacre.

Shaking her head, she directed a thought towards the runes that floated above the compound and shattered them and their wards, then snuffed out the remaining pockets of cursed fire that still burned. Maybe some of the Buckleys would recognize the change and take the opportunity to escape. Maybe they would not and would therefore die. Either way, she washed her hands of this. "I'm here to kill the Turk, not slaughter my way through people whose deaths provide no advantage to our mission. Let me know once you find out where he actually is."

"Very well," Priest replied graciously. "Until then."

Twirling on her heel, she vanished from that place and reappeared high in the sky above Hogwarts. Hopefully someone there was smart enough to take the hint.

* * *

"This the place?"

"That it is, and I can see the bodies from here. Savage, Tonks, go in and dig around. Dickerson and I will look for any witnesses."

"Dickerson and his weak stomach," Gabriella Savage scoffed as the two witches crossed the line of scorched grass and ash piles. "If he couldn't stand to look at a dead body or two, why did he even sign up as an Auror?"

Dora shook her head. She knew the real reason why Gabriella was so grouchy; the older Auror had been called in from a date with her beau, and the closer they got to the site, the more this looked like it was going to be one of those all-night paperwork marathons. That said, Dickerson's reputation for easily getting sick at crime scenes was still a definite irritant. "Did you hear the rumor that he's playing up his squeamishness just so he gets passed over on the messy assignments? Some of the guys are doing some digging on the side, and the Coolidge siblings supposedly are taking bets about when they'll find something."

"When aren't they running some book or another?" Gabriella said with a short laugh, her normally buoyant mood restored a little. For all her affected gruffness, she truly was easily amused and fairly lighthearted. "All right, Tonksy. What do you see?"

"Twelve bodies. No visible blood, but it could have been absorbed by the grass." She bent down to feel the surprisingly firm earth next to the nearest corpse. "Or not. No wounds that I can see. Killing Curse?"

"Maybe." Figuring out if a murder was the result of the Unforgivable was hard in the field because there were so many poisons and curses that would not leave any external marks, but it was important to know if that were the case. The Killing Curse could not be cast by just anyone; it took a certain degree of power and a lot of hate to use it, and those two together ruled out the majority of suspects. "Not the Death Eaters, though. They'd have cast the Dark Mark before they ran off.  _Priori Incantato_."

They both stared in shock as a shining boar floated from the tip of the wand she had picked up. "A Patronus?" Dora muttered, looking over the crime scene with new eyes. Not the Killing Curse, then, but the Dementor's Kiss. Except the Kiss did not kill this quickly. Soulless bodies would survive for days until they finally died of dehydration, even longer if they were forcibly fed and watered. And the Dementors had sided with Voldemort, so did this mean that this really was a Death Eater raid? But why no Dark Mark?

Unless the Death Eaters simply had not left yet.

Gabriella had clearly come to the same conclusion, and the pair of them moved toward a nearby house. A tap of the more experienced Auror's wand on her badge made it gleam blue for a moment. "Possible DE raid. They may still be here. We're checking the houses out one by one."

 _"Understood,"_  replied Chief Auror Robard's voice.  _"Be careful. Try to arrest them only if you think you can do it safely; otherwise, just take them out."_

"Will do. Wands at the ready, Tonks."

They slunk through the far-too-quiet house, eyes twitching as they tried to watch everything at once. All the bodies outside were adults, but in a compound of this size, Dora would expect more people than just those and a bunch of kids, besides. So where was everyone?

Spotting a single cabinet door that had been left open, she slipped around the kitchen island to keep some cover between her and whatever it turned out to be. "Found a secret passage or something. We'd have to crawl through."

"Keep an eye on it. Make sure nothing comes out," ordered Gabriella. "I'll check out the rest of the house. If there's nothing…."

She nodded. She did not exactly want to go down it, either, but someone needed to, and as the first boots on the ground, of course it would be up to them. Maybe they would get lucky, though. It could be a panic room of sorts, and they might find the family that lived in this house scared but otherwise okay.

A few minutes passed before her partner returned to the kitchen and shook her head. Enter the passageway it was, then.

Getting down on her hands and knees, Dora slowly made her way down the tunnel. A short distance from the entrance, she found a wall of ice blocking the way, and she carefully vanished the ice until she could squeeze out of the tunnel.

"Savage!" she shouted when her eyes had adjusted to the gloom of the room.

Her partner hastily joined her at her shout, and the two witches stared in shock at the scene that was revealed by the lanterns hung from the walls. The entire floor was painted red with blood, and the source was obvious.

Another tap preceded Gabriella's shaky report. "Chief, we've got between forty and sixty more bodies here. Looks like a mix of kids and adults. They've all been torn apart."

_"Spellfire?"_

"I don't know. Wait." She bent down to peer at something on the floor. "Negative. Animals of some kind. I see two… three… six or seven different paw prints just from where I'm standing. Maybe more. And…." She grimaced. "And I think they ate some of the bodies. It doesn't fit the Death Eaters' methods, but I don't know who else could have done this."

_"Get out and secure the area. Forensics and backup will be there as soon as they can. I'll appraise Scrimgeour and Bones. We do_ _**not** _ _need more monsters wandering around starting shit right now."_

* * *

Morag took the newspaper from the owl's claws and sent it on its way with a few knuts and a slice of ham. She then immediately began pulling it apart. "Sports for me. Jen, your politics. Padma, international events. Luna, gossip or headline news?"

"Headlines, please."

Jen accepted her section of the paper with an appreciative nod. Late in November, Morag had mentioned that it really did not make much sense for them all to buy their own copies of the  _Daily Prophet_ when there were only occasionally interesting articles and they all focused on different areas of news, anyway, so for the month of December they were trying out her idea of pooling their money to buy a single paper and sharing it. If anyone spotted any captivating news, she would let the others know, and for those sections that multiple people had at least some interest in – such as Padma's newfound desire to hear about any changes to werewolf legislation that could possibly lead to Parvati being able to come back to Britain – they would simply pass the relevant pages back and forth. It also cut down on the amount of space four opened newspapers took up at the breakfast table.

Skimming her area, Jen shrugged and set her section down. Nothing particularly noteworthy, just more announcements about the upcoming Solstice Ball that Cissy would undoubtedly have more detailed knowledge about. "Anything interesting?"

"No," Padma sighed.

"The Tornadoes' winning streak finally broke," announced Morag. "Lost to the Arrows 300 to 270. Took long enough."

"Good for the Arrows, I suppose. What about you, Luna?" The blonde stared at the front page in her hands, which had started to shake. "Luna?"

The blonde dropped the paper and all but dived into Jen's arms, face buried in her shoulder. Her robes slowly grew wet with tears.

Padma, Morag, and Jen shared a confused look before the Hindi witch reached over and pulled the page closer. " _'Massacre in Leicestershire_ '?" Reading through it, she summarized, "Aurors were informed of a disturbance at the family compound belonging to the Common House of Buckley last night. Upon investigation, they found every member of the family murdered by person or persons unknown. They say it wasn't the Death Eaters but was more likely someone with a grudge against the family. Unless any current members of the House bearing that name come forward in the next thirty days, the House will be declared extinct."

Her heart sinking, Jen looked down at her girlfriend. "Luna? Did you know the Buckleys?"

The blonde nodded. A few seconds passed before she pulled her head away from Jen's chest and looked up. "That's my mum's family."

Oh.  _That_  was why she recognized the name.

"They don't like my dad, so I never saw them much, but my mum always hoped that they would warm up to him. When she had her accident, they pushed us away even more. Still, I thought that… someday…." Unable to continue, she squeezed even tighter and shoved her head once more against her family's murderer.

All Jen could do was awkwardly hold her as she cried.

* * *

**…Oops?**

**Silently Watches out.**


	19. Dark Conception

" **Last chapter was a little much for me":**  Yes, last chapter was definitely the darkest one I've written for this story so far. Thankfully, it is also the darkest of this book and, in all likelihood, of the series as a whole. Everything gets lighter from here, not that  _that's_ hard.

 **Steven:**  Many members of the Buckley family have been avatars of Holda, just none in recent memory. That's where the white magic wards came from. Most of the knowledge has been forgotten over the centuries, but the use of Patroni against "dark wizards" has been kept as a family secret.

**After four long,** _**long** _ **years, I graduated from medical school on Saturday! You guys may now refer to me as** _**Doctor** _ **Silently Watches. Now I just need to finish three years of an internal medicine residency… and two more years of fellowship training after that….**

**Ugh. At least I'll be getting paid this time.**

**Disclaimer:**  After losing the first war against Voldemort, were the blood purists and the Death Eaters removed from their positions of power in the Wizengamot and intercepted when they tried to purchase the ear of the Minister? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 19  
** **Dark Conception**

Luna was no stranger to vibrant dreams. When she was little, she would regale her parents with tales of the unnatural vistas she had visited in her sleep, and after one particularly disturbing dream, she had even convinced them to let her bring a coil of rope and a jar of honey to bed with her just in case she was ever trapped in that cave with the angry bear again. During her first two years at Hogwarts, her dreams had actually felt more real and were more welcoming than real life.

That meant that when she opened her eyes to find herself in a lush tropical jungle, she started wandering around like she always did. If nothing else, it was an excuse to forget the news about her maternal family's murder.

It took her several minutes before she could put her finger on just what it was that was slowly but surely making her glance around the close quarters with anxiety and suspicion. Despite the alien feature of the places she visited in her own mind, whether they held purple skies or waterfalls falling upwards or dog-like creatures covered in insectile chitin, there was still something normal about it. Birdsong, waves sloshing against the shoreline, the chirps of crickets or some other similar animals. The song of nature, no matter how strange a specific instrument might be, was a constant companion.

But here? It was utterly quiet. The wind did not stir the leaves. No birds chirped or called. The undergrowth was not disturbed by wandering animals. Climbing a low-hanging branch, she pulled her legs up to her chest and glanced nervously around her.

"Be not afraid, sweet child."

Luna heart pounded in her chest as she threw herself away from the voice, and she stared in shock at the face that had suddenly appeared in the side of the tree. The woman's face frowned before it pressed forwards, and the smooth bark of the tree thickened and seemed to melt. The liquid wood rolled together to become shoulders and chest and abdomen, though farther away from the strange woman's chest her skin reached, the less fleshy and the more woody it appeared. "Dear thing," said the tree-person, plump cheeks distorting inhumanly when she frowned. "You have no need to be so concerned for your safety here. There is nothing that will harm you."

The blonde was used to strange dreams, but people in her dreams talking back to her was disconcerting even by her standards.

"Come. Sit." The possible dryad seated herself on the same branch Luna had climbed onto and waved her closer. "I merely wish to speak with you, Luna."

"How do you know my name?"

"I know the name of every Child of Buckley." The woman scowled for a moment, but in that brief period Luna caught a glimpse of something ancient and terrible perched where the woman sat. That was enough to ruin the illusion of the sweet matron the dryad apparently wanted to cloak herself within. "Not that there are many of you left. Not after that slaughter."

"You know what happened to my mum's family?!" Luna demanded, taking a step closer despite her fear. "Do you know who did it?"

The woman shot her an uneasy glance. "I do."

"Who?!"

"That I cannot tell you. Not as you are." The blonde glared at her. This woman-tree-thing knew who had killed her maternal family but was not going to reveal the monster's name?! "I wish to tell you, my dear, I do. But there is a protocol that must be adhered to. If you desire the right to know their names, you must take up your family's mantle. You must swear allegiance to the Light and to Holda. To me," she added with a warm smile.

Luna shook her head. "Sorry, but I've read those kinds of books. I know a bad idea when it's staring me in the face like this."

That wiped the smile off the woman's, off Holda's, face. "You need not be so distrusting. I am not like those djinn and specters. Nor is this a ploy. There are rules to which I must adhere, and so long as those prohibitions bind me, I may not tell you all the things I wish to."

That was exactly the kind of thing the more malevolent fae or certain spirits would say to trick her into making a bargain with them. Luna shook her head and took a step backwards. She had learned how to wake herself up from within her dreams, but it was not something she had practiced much. It took time for her to force herself back to the real world.

"The Black girl," Holda suddenly said. "Even if you do not desire to align yourself with me at this time, I knew your family for centuries. They would not wish you to involve yourself with someone like that."

"What have you got against Jen?" First this dryad refused to tell her what she knew about the murder of her family, then she tried to enslave her, and now she was disparaging her girlfriend, her best friend? That was far too much!

Holda's lips pressed tightly together, the expression reminiscent of McGonagall when she was most severely displeased. "That girl is a fiend. She will corrupt and destroy you should you continue on unwary, and once you lay broken on the ground, she will walk away to find someone new with whom to entertain herself with nary a backwards glance."

"How dare you!"

"I dare because, whether or not you believe such, I desire nothing but the best for you."

Crossing her arms, she glared at the tree-woman. "Prove it. Tell me what she's done that makes you so sure she's that kind of person."

"You have seen the proof with your own two eyes. Would a lover who truly cares about you seek out a place in another's arms?"

That hurt, and the sharpness of the barb just made Luna angrier. True, she and Jen were experiencing problems with their relationship. Her girlfriend's insistence on finding a husband, no matter how often the dark-haired girl tried to explain all the political advantages such an arrangement would bring her House, was placing a strain on them. They had started doing more of their activities separately, even sleeping in different beds many nights, but Jen's indifference to how much she disliked her girlfriend putting their relationship on the back burner to play politics was not enough to make her throw everything away. "That's selfishness. Or maybe obliviousness, I'm not sure which. But it's far from being a fiend. Try again."

"I cannot tell you," Holda spat out after long seconds of fruitless straining. "Everything rests on a single foundation, and that I may not reveal until we have sealed our pact."

"Of course you can't. How convenient," she shot back. "I'm leaving now. Hopefully, I won't see you again."

Holda shot to her feet and raised a warning finger. "Do not speak in that way. Child of Buckley you may be, but never did you dwell in the house of your mother. You channel my power each year, but our connection is frayed and fragile still. Cast me away, and I will be unable to offer my aid when you have need of me."

"You insulted Jen to my face and keep trying to convince me to make a bargain with you," Luna reminded the dryad. "I don't want your help, and I don't want any connection to you. All I want is for you to leave me alone."

"You do not understand what you are doing, little girl."

She turned her back on Holda. "I understand enough. Goodbye."

The landscape fell away to be replaced by an amber sea surrounding a lone sandbar, and Luna nodded as the cries of bizarre four-winged seagulls reached her ears. This was better.

* * *

Landing on the ground near her allies' warehouse base, Jen hurried inside and billowed out the sides of her coat to shake off some of the snow that had stuck to it. Teleporting into a storm was not her idea of a good time. This was the kind of day when she would love nothing more than to stay near the fire in the den, but unfortunately, the dreadful weather was something she would have to deal with. It was the winter solstice, and they had only today if they wanted to find the Turk and kill him while he was unconscious. Priest had told her that the ability to shake off the lingering weakness that followed the solstice was one that developed with experience, and considering how old the Turk was, that meant he would probably be capable of fighting at nearly full strength the very next day.

The sooner they dealt with the Turk, the sooner she could kick these two out of her country. Dora's censored references to the Auror's investigation of the Buckleys' extinction were hammering in just how much of a threat the other black mages' recklessness was to her own safety, and that was without considering the indignation their wasteful attitudes had stirred up in her breast. She still had to live in this land when they were through, and that task was made more difficult when they could not constrain themselves to being judicious in their murders.

"—your fault!  _'Just jump,'_  you said!  _'You can make a new one,'_  you said! How about  _you_  make a new one, jackass!"

Well, that answered the question of where Menagerie was, and it was probably Priest at whom she was shouting. Navigating her way through the crates, she poked her head into the clearing that she assumed served as their living quarters in the single enormous room. Priest ducked under a box that came hurtling at his head, smile never wavering in the slightest, and Menagerie—

"…the hell?"

The pink-haired witch turned to face her with a snarl. Jen ignored that; her eyes were locked onto the gravid belly that swayed with the movement. She had seen Menagerie not even a week previously, and she had looked totally normal, but now? Now she was in the last few weeks of pregnancy!

"What are you looking at?!"

Jen blinked in complete bemusement. "…Priest?"

"Please excuse her," the dark-skinned wizard said in his ever-placid voice. "She always gets like this when she has to create a new chimera."

"…What?"

"The Grand Wyrm is also known as the 'Mother of Monsters', and it is a fair description. As a reflection of that, she places a requirement on her female servants that, when they want to produce—"

"Stop. Just. Just stop." Her eyes drifted toward Menagerie again, and then they shot back to Priest. "I'm going. Somewhere. Somewhere that isn't here. This has gotten too weird even for me."

The winter winds smacking her in the face were bracing, and she let it go on for a few seconds before throwing up a charm to shelter her.

Footsteps came from behind her as Priest walked up to stand next to her. "It is strange, sometimes," he said, "to remember how little of our world you have yet witnessed. In time, even this, as strange as it must be to you now, becomes commonplace."

"I suppose that explains you," she muttered. He tilted his head curiously. "In all the time I've known you, you have yet to seem surprised by anything. Or angry. Or sad. Or happy. You're always totally, unbreakably calm."

The African wizard nodded. "It is a benefit of my magic. In exchange for my emotions, I received an immunity to the vast majority of mind magics I might come up against. That has saved my life on numerous occasions, actually; it should not come as a surprise that a number of white wizards have attempted to deter me and the companions I have had at one time or another by subterfuge rather than risk an open confrontation. But yes, an even keel in the most stressful of situations never ceases to benefit me."

"You gave up your emotions to make you safe from compulsions?" That really should not make as much sense as it did. It also reminded her of a question she had meant to ask him but had not found a politic way of doing so. "I suppose you did something else to modify your body the way you have? On Halloween, you lost an arm, but you didn't care, and it wasn't bleeding. It looked… strange."

"That was one of the largest pieces of black magic I have ever performed," boasted the black wizard. "It was after my… third hunt, I believe? I had been rather grievously injured, and while my comrade at the time was able to stabilize me and take me to someone who could restore the destroyed pieces of my body, it was not an experience I was eager to repeat.

"You recall what I said before concerning the women protecting this place, yes? My solution was in much the same vein. In order to keep myself alive and in proper health, I needed to eliminate the care others felt for me. My entire immediate family: my parents, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, my grandmother, and even my former fiancée. Not a one of them remembers anything about me."

She swallowed lightly. To be completely isolated, with no one at all? That was an extreme step, one she personally would hesitate to consider unless there was absolutely no other way to achieve her goals. "Do you regret that? Or did you, before you bargained away your emotions?"

Priest leaned his head back and looked up at the cloudy sky as he considered that question. "Not particularly. We – black mages as a whole – do not bond well with other people. We cannot, not if we are to be effective at our tasks. I would recommend you ask Menagerie about her schism with her own family at some point, but I do not wish you to be mauled by all manner of creatures. If you are curious, though, she has a fondness for mead and tends to be more open when intoxicated."

"I'll… keep that in mind." Which meant she was never, ever going to ask.

Several minutes passed in silence, and then they looked behind them at the shambling steps growing slowly louder. Menagerie's colorful hair laid flat and wet with sweat against her scalp, and her face was flushed as though she had just run a dozen kilometers at a dead sprint… or as though she had just given birth. It did not help matters that her belly now had a small paunch when during their murder of House Buckley it had been toned and flat. "That was rougher than usual," she told them in a weak rasp. "You two better just go and look for him without me. I'm going to eat something and take it easy for the rest of the day. Feed the little bastard, too, so it stops staring at my tits."

Jen could not even come up with any snide comments to that, so instead she tentatively offered, "Maybe you should take a nap when you're done with that. You look exhausted."

"I am. I was getting everything ready since sundown, and I've been carrying him since two." The older black witch yawned with her mouth wide open, showing off sharply pointed teeth that sat where flat molars should be. "I might just take your advice. Good hunting."

Reaching inside his coat, Priest pulled out a thick roll of cloth that he revealed to be a flying carpet. "Let us not waste any more time, then. If you would follow me, Queen? I propose we start at the two bases we know for a fact the Turk set out to defend, and from there we can move to the other locations. Have you kept track of him to make sure he has not created another stronghold?"

"There are specific circumstances that have to be fulfilled for that scrying to work. I have not managed to complete those again since the first attempt," she quickly lied. Really, she just did not want to go through the process of immersion scrying again quite so soon. Now that she knew what to watch out for, she expected she could mitigate the risk of destroying her self-identity, but that was still a risk she did not particularly wish to take.

"Disappointing. Very well. I suppose we shall simply have to search for him the old-fashioned way."

* * *

"Jen, hurry up or you're going to be late!"

"I know that, Aunt Andi!" she yelled back, her lips flipping through a multitude of colors and shades before she finally settled on a bright cinnabar. The pendant dangling from her choker was glamoured to look fancier than normal. A pair of ruby studs went into her ears. A decorative shawl to complete the ensemble, and she took a step back to look over the effect of the splashes of red and silver in contrast to the sharp black dress robes. It would do.

She quickly descended the stairs, most of her mind focused not on the Ministry's Solstice Ball but instead on the fruitless quest she and Priest had finally stopped a few hours previously. None of the locations had held hide nor hair of the Turk. She might have to try immersion scrying again, that or summoning another pooka to track him down. Or both, even, which might be the most effective option.

"Very nice," Cissy said when she reached the sitting room. The two sisters looked at each other and then refocused their attentions on her. "Now we just have to wait for your escort to show up."

She did not groan out loud, but it was a near thing. Finding a husband was incredibly important for the future of her House, but right now, she had a hard time calling forth any enthusiasm for the task. Each suitor seemed to be even more of a disaster than the one before him, and her list of viable prospects was growing shorter and shorter. This was the easy part, too! Once she had determined whom she was truly interested, the courting process became only more intense as the few remaining men jockeyed for the best gifts with which to win her over.

And Luna was convinced she was doing this for  _fun_? If only that were true!

"Don't be like that," Andi chided gently. "We know you haven't found the last few—"

"Try the last dozen or so."

"—Fine, the last dozen or so suitors very palatable, but if you show up at the Ball without an escort now, it could be taken as a signal that you are not interested in the courting process, and some of the wizards chasing your skirt would leave to seek out some better prospect." She smiled at that thought, but Andi quickly cut it down. "Unfortunately, there's nothing to say that it wouldn't be the suitors you like that decide to look elsewhere, leaving you only with those you don't care for."

"Or can't stand," Cissy cut in with a smile. "Don't worry, though. We  _do_  know how little you've cared for most of your suitors, so we called one you do like to serve as your escort for the evening."

Jen narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Just what were her aunts up to this time?

A flare of magic came from the fireplace, and the piebald witch smirked. "And that should be him now."

Turning towards the green flames, her mouth dropped open when she recognized the tall, broad-shouldered wizard stepping into her home. He brushed some soot off his overcoat, and only then did he look at her and smile. "You von't even say hello?"

"Viktor?!" He smiled and stepped up to pull her into a tight embrace. "I missed you," she whispered. It was true, too. She could not help but compare the wizards she was going out with to him, and few of them stacked up.

"I haff missed you as vell." Tilting her chin up, he gave her a deep kiss.

Half-heartedly stifled giggles ruined the moment, and she turned to glare at the two women who looked entirely too pleased with themselves. "The three of us are going to have a long, pointed talk when I get back."

"Only when she gets back?" Andi said to her little sister in a stage whisper. "She can't be  _that_  upset about it, then."

She felt a niggling against her mental shields, and curious despite herself, she launched a probe at Cissy's mind.  _"You know we just want you to be happy,"_ she heard the older witch think.  _"Andi and I both avoided having to court, but we had to listen to Bellatrix's non-stop bitching on the subject before she finally settled on Rodolphus, so we are at least peripherally aware of how frustrating it can be. Tonight, you don't have to worry about putting up with someone. Just enjoy the party."_

Jen gave Cissy a look of thanks. "We had better get a move on," she told the famous Seeker, slipping her arm though his and leading him back towards the fireplace and the jar of Floo powder. "There's a fine line between fashionably late and rude, and we don't want to cross it. Notty Acres!"

The fires disgorged them in an opulent greeting room, rich walnut paneling on the walls and an intricate tile mosaic depicting a orchard in bloom spanning the width of the floor. At the end of the room stood an actual person, a middle-aged blond man wearing a rather bland set of dress robes. "May I take your coat?" he wheezed in a flat voice.

Viktor shrugged off his coat and handed it to the man. "I did not dink dere vere still families in Britain who employed human help."

The servant said nothing in response, nor did he so much as flinch when Jen slipped deep into his personal space to examine his blank, unfocused eyes. "I don't think he was necessarily  _hired_ ," she said quietly.

"Vhat?" He loomed over her to look at the man's eyes himself. His next words were whispered harshly in Bulgarian. "The Imperious Curse? I thought that was illegal in this country."

"Incredibly so. I know we aren't the first ones here. Someone else has to have noticed this, too. I'm extremely curious just what's going on." Slipping back into English, she gave his arm a short tug. "It will be interesting what Lord Nott has to say for himself."

They walked into the enormous room that had been set aside for the ball, not a few people's heads turning to stare at her when they realized she was on the arm of world-famous Viktor Krum. She exchanged pleasantries here and there as they walked deeper into the room, her eyes on the watch for the eldest Nott.

"Mr. Krum, what a surprise!" The turned to see Lord Pickering approaching, the man's smile dimming when he saw her. "And Scion Black, of course it's a pleasure to see you here, as well. Will Lord Black be present this evening?"

"The pleasure is mine," she replied with a practiced smile. "I was under the impression that my lord already was here. Perhaps you have simply passed him?"

"Perhaps I have."

Before the ensuing silence could become too awkward, Viktor jumped in. "How are de Catapults doing dis year? I heard you hired on a new Keeper, but I haff been too busy to keep up with de details."

"O'Connell is doing fine, Mr. Krum," Pickering answered, his grin widening again now that he was no longer speaking to one of his political and philosophical opposites. Leaning closer conspiratorially, he whispered, "I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but since you play in the European Leagues, it should be safe. It's Bertram who's still our weak link. I sometimes wonder if he could catch the Snitch if it flew straight into his hand. You wouldn't happen to know anyone who might be looking to change countries and head to Britain, now would you?"

Viktor flashed his own smile. "As a matter of fact, my contract vith de Vultures is set to end in de next eighteen months. If everyding goes vell, I might find myself in Britain by den, anyvay. Of course, I vould be a kept man, so to speak, so how I spend my time vould not be only my decision."

Was he…? He was. She stretched her smile out wider when Pickering turned to look at her, this time with greed in his eyes rather than distrust. By making it sound like he would need her permission to play for a team, Viktor could force all these team owners to petition her, and once she knew she had something they wanted, she could use that to leverage their support in the political arena. It would not be much, not when his talent could only be loaned to one person at a time, but it was  _something_.

"I wouldn't keep you from doing something you love," she said, keeping the conversation going even as the last pieces clicked into place. "I can't say I would mind you being a little closer to home, though. Caerphilly isn't nearly as far a trip as Vrasta. I just don't know if that would be the best place for you to show off your skills. That's something we'd have to discuss later," she said for Pickering's benefit.

"Oh, take your time. I'm in no rush," the Light-leaning lord lied.

"We will certainly keep your offer in mind. Actually, Lord Black and I were discussing you just the other day." He gave her a look of cautious curiosity. "We were wondering where you stood on the bill regarding decreasing the tariffs on the importation of Sweetwillow Vine…."

Several minutes passed as she worked to sway him to their side of the debate, and through it all, she kept one eye on Viktor, who appeared perfectly content to hang back and let her handle the political maneuvering. "You planned that, didn't you?" she muttered once Pickering had departed. Pulling him to the side of the room where they were less likely to be overheard, she continued, "You knew he had his fingers in the Catapults, and you intentionally made your little offer sound like you needed my permission." The Bulgarian celebrity just smiled, a mischievous spark dancing in his dark eyes. "I'm impressed, make no mistake about that. But while I have my suspicions on why you did it, I want to hear it from you."

"If ve do marry, I expect that I vill move to dis country. It seems only sensible dat I try to find a new job." He gave the cuffs of his sleeves a little tug to straighten the fabric out. "But I haff to prove to your family dat I am de best suitor for us to get to dat stage. You know my family does not haff any political connections or vealth. But me personally? I do haff skills and a reputation dat you might find marketable."

"You're okay with being used a pawn in my family's games?"

"If I vere not, vould I be here trying to buy your hand?" he retorted in amusement. "I am used by de Vultures' manager and de Bulgarian Ministry anyvay. So long as I play Kvidditch and can support my lifestyle, I do not care if odders profit off my fame. If anyding, I get more exposure and more fame ven dey are finished."

"They use you to get what they want, and you use them using you to get what you want. Clever."

"I dink so." Holding out his hand, he gestured with the other at the dance floor that was just now starting to fill up. "May I haff dis first dance, my lady?"

"Certain—" She cut herself off as she saw a wizened man wandering through the crowd and shaking hands. "Perhaps the second. It's only polite that we say hello to Nott, don't you think?"

His grin faded as he took in her displeased smile, and he nodded seriously. "Yes, you are correct. Ve must greet our host. Compliment him on his staff."

"See? We are a good match." They slipped through the clumps of party-goers until they reached the eldest Nott, his son following close behind. "Lord Nott, I have to wonder if you are trying to outdo our party last year. Your decorations are marvelous."

The old wizard smiled politely at her self-deprecating jest. "I am glad you are enjoying yourself, Scion Black. I no longer have the same vitality as your Head of House, but I cannot help but be inspired by such enthusiasm."

"Then I find myself looking forward to the next time you host such a gala," she said. "And I simply must ask: Wherever did you find your footman? He looks so realistic that I nearly thought him a Muggle, but I know I have to be mistaken. Owning Muggle slaves was outlawed almost three centuries ago, after all."

For all the pretty smile on his face, the wizards eyes grew cold at that barb. Just as she thought. "I am afraid I cannot take credit for those. My great-great-grandfather commissioned that and similar automata to fulfill such duties that cannot be delegated to house-elves. Greeting visitors, clearing a table between courses, delivering formal messages, that sort of thing. Homunculi are not easy to maintain, but they are a point of pride in my House, and I believe we have done a decent job with their upkeep.

"If you will excuse me, Scion Black, Mr. Krum. Sadly, a host's duties are never done, and I am afraid I still have many guests to greet."

"Our apologies for keeping you, Lord Nott. I appreciate your time."

"Was any of what he said even possible?" asked Viktor in his mother tongue while they watched the two Notts walk away.

"Possible?" she replied in the same language. "Yes. But so incredibly unlikely as to beggar belief. A homunculus takes a truly insane amount of resources to keep alive, and the Notts aren't that rich. If he really knew anything about them, he also wouldn't have called it a homunculus and an automaton practically in the same breath. The first is an alchemical creation, a human body that wanders the world without a soul, while the other is enchanted and animated and nearly impossible to make look truly human. Those were Muggles, no doubt about it, but like I said, there is an extremely slim possibility that he is telling the truth, and that is all he really needs to keep anyone from poking around too deep. If I were him or one of his ancestors, I would have bribed a Ministry official to register a certain number of supposed homunculi as family heirlooms so I would have the certificates to point at, too. So long as he doesn't enslave more Muggles than he has registered homunculi, that is another layer of protection."

"And if someone does look beyond that, he can just bribe or threaten them into silence?" he guessed, his voice rough with righteous indignation.

"Welcome to the ugly side of aristocracy." A tray bearing flutes of champagne floated past them, and she grabbed two before handing one to her escort. "Where nothing is illegal, merely expensive, and  _everyone_  has a price."

"Decent people do not have a price. They do not sell out their morals."

"Perhaps they don't. I know mine, though." He looked askance at her, and she nodded. Oh, she could be bought. It could be a high price indeed, but it had been met before. The Baron had met it. Sirius had met it. Voldemort could have met it if he had not been so heavy-handed in the graveyard and had her patron not demanded his head. "My survival. The promotion of my family. The life of my child, when that becomes reality. The right to worship in safety," she added when she remembered the excuse she had given him about wearing the Resurrection Stone. "Guarantee me one or more of those, and you would have my full and willing cooperation."

She tipped her glass at their host's back. "Nott and his son? Both Death Eaters. I heard their names in the cemetery when—" Voldemort's name would sound the same in Bulgarian, wouldn't it? "—when this country's Dark Lord was resurrected. They tortured and apparently enslaved Muggles without a care, yet here they are, pillars of society. All because they put the right amount of gold in the right hands. Like I said, anything can be bought here, even innocence."

"I mean no offense, but it makes me wonder if a society this corrupt doesn't deserve to be overthrown," Viktor muttered.

"Ignoring that my family owes a great deal of our power and wealth to working within the system we already have, I do agree with you, at least to an extent. But can you guarantee that whatever replaces it wouldn't be just as bad or even worse? People are people are people, darling, and if there's one thing about people I can say for certain, it's that nothing made by our hands remains untainted for long. Greed and pride are the most dire of venoms, and we all bear those vipers in our hearts. Some of us are just worse at keeping them in their cages."

"This is far more melancholy talk than I expected to deal with tonight," he admitted, draining his wine in a single swallow. "I am not nearly drunk enough to wax philosophical, and since I believe getting drunk is looked down upon at these types of party…."

She laughed. "You'd be surprised. Sirius and I found some people in rather awkward states at our own party last year. But you're right; this is neither the time nor the place for depressing conversation. Tonight is to see if you can wine and dance me into submission."

"Is that a challenge I hear?" She winked at him, and he gave her a broad, sincere smile that dispelled the shadows of their conversation. "Our hosts were good enough to provide the wine, so all I need to do is triumph over you on the dance floor."

"There go those boasts again, pansy man," she teased playfully. "You think you're that good? Prove it."

* * *

**My mind is a very disturbing place sometimes.**

**That's three Powers who have shown up in the flesh so far, four if you count the extremely limited glimpse you got of Mab in** _**Ascendant** _ **. I don't plan for any of the others to get any screen time in this series.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	20. Truth and Lies

**It took 19 chapters, but this story finally hit 1,000 reviews. A special shout-out to Gruffard for pushing us over that milestone!**

**And as you can see, there is no disclaimer. The well of relevant plot-holes has officially run dry.**

* * *

**Chapter 20  
** **Truth and Lies**

Winter gusts rattled the windows of the Rook, the winds a product of the blizzard that sprang up several days ago and still had not finished blowing itself out. The storm had all but buried the orchards the inhabitants of Ottery St. Catchpole visited on their yearly wassailing, and no one, not even elderly Mr. Kingsford who had blessed the trees every year since he was a boy, was willing to brave the storm's fury.

Luna glanced out at the enormous snowdrifts that had collected in the clearing around the tower. With her father out of the house helping Mr. McNeese take care of his wife through her sudden bout of dragon pox, the house was empty except for her, but that did not account for the feeling of intense loneliness that had beset her for the last week and a half. It had not been too terrible while she was still at Hogwarts, where she had her friends around her to provide her with company and to offer her their consolation at the loss of her maternal family, but even then, it felt as though a small, warm coal in her heart had been snuffed out and would no longer provide the warmth that had seemed so negligible until it was gone. Now, though, when the only people near her age were the Weasleys with whom she had already been estranged even before Jen revealed herself and antagonized them? Those feelings had only gotten worse, and it made the empty house seem cold and forbidding rather than welcoming as it always had before.

The yellow flames consuming the last logs in the fireplace flared with sudden green, and a black-haired witch stepped into the house. "Sorry I'm late," Jen said, unwinding the blue and black scarf wrapped around her neck. The same scarf Luna had made and given her the previous Christmas, in fact. Hanging it and her white dragonscale coat on the back of a chair, the older girl walked over and filled the other half of the sofa. Pulling Luna close, she whispered, "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Jen," the blonde sighed, relaxing into the embrace. "I'm sorry my gift was lousy—"

"You don't have anything to apologize for. Everyone loved the butterscotch." Jen chuckled lightly. "Aunt Andi wants your recipe, by the way. She all but threatened to kick me out of the house if I came back without it."

She gave her girlfriend a smile that was truly more of a grimace. That really did not make her feel any better. If there were only one downside to being in a relationship with someone who lived in such a totally different world financially, it very well might be this one. She remembered their exchange from the previous year: while she gave Jen the aforementioned scarf, Jen gave her a memory projector that was undoubtedly worth dozens of galleons. The older girl might be able to blow off such a massive difference in the quality of their gifts, but then, Jen was not the one who had any reason to feel like she was taking advantage of her girlfriend. "It's not the same," Luna eventually muttered. "And I'm sure you brought something to give me since there was nothing waiting underneath the tree, and it's probably going to be incredibly expensive and gorgeous, too."

It was only because she was already watching closely that she saw the pained wince flash across her girlfriend's face. "You… could say that. I know my courting has put a lot of stress on our relationship, and I wanted to make it up to you."

Standing up, the heiress walked over to her coat and pulled out a small cube that grew in her hand to become a decently sized box wrapped in red paper. She set it on the table and looked seriously at the blonde. "I wasn't sure if I should give it to you or not, actually. Not because of the price! It's just…. There's a great deal of history tied to it. But if anyone was going to appreciate it, you would, and," she added with a strained laugh, "it isn't like I can do much else with it."

Now definitely concerned, Luna walked over to the table and slowly began to unwrap it. Underneath the paper was an unremarkable cardboard box, and she glanced over at Jen. What had her so worried? Taking a deep breath, she flipped open the lid and peeked insi—

Dear Merlin!

Grey eyes shot up to meet purple. "Is that…. It can't be. How would you…. Where…. When…. But you…. Jen, what the hell?!"

"That's why I wasn't sure if I should give it to you."

Her hands were shaking so badly that she honestly was afraid she would drop the priceless artifact onto the floor. A gleaming silver tiara festooned with sapphires; hesitantly turning it around, she did not know whether to gasp or cry or scream when she read the words she was afraid would be there. " _'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure'_. Jennifer Black, where did you find  _Ravenclaw's lost diadem_?!"

"That's actually a fairly long and involved story," her girlfriend said, "and I don't think you really want to know all the details. Suffice it to say that I could not put it back once I had it, and explaining it to the proper authorities would be difficult."

"If you're trying to convince me that you did something incredibly dangerous and almost certainly illegal,  _you're succeeding_ ," she absolutely did not growl. That was Jen's thing. But  _if_  she did, it would certainly be deserved. "Merlin's beard, Jen! This should be given to the school, or the Ministry, or somebody!"

Jen smiled far too innocently. "And you can do that. After all, you and your father have spent a great deal of time out of the country. It would not be too terribly surprising if you came across it on one of your expeditions. The decision of what should be done with it I leave entirely in your hands."

"…We're not going to have crime syndicates or dark wizards coming after us, are we?"

"No, no." She frowned and corrected herself, "Probably not. An artifact this rare could garner you some attention, yes, but if it's only revealed that you had it once it is in someone else's possession, I am all but certain you have nothing to fear."

"That just fills me with confidence."

Dismissing Luna's sarcastic rebuttal with a wave of her hand, Jen asked, "Would you rather that I hadn't given it to you? Maybe kept it in a box somewhere and only pulled it out occasionally to admire in private?"

"I never said that. It's just…." She looked down at the crown again. "It's Ravenclaw's Diadem. Pardon me for being a little shocked." Her eyes flicked back and forth between the brunette and the last relic of one of Hogwarts's founders. "…Are the stories true? Does it really give you the knowledge and wisdom of all the masters and geniuses who came before us?"

"I don't know. The Diadem isn't fond of me," Jen explained to her expression of astonishment. "It didn't reveal any of its secrets when I found it. Maybe you will have better luck. In fact, I am sure of it."

That was not encouraging, but she could not just let the opportunity pass her by. Taking a deep breath and squeezing her eyes shut, Luna lowered the Diadem onto her head. It did not immediately turn her into a mindless husk, so that was a good start. She cracked open one eye and gasped in amazement.

Their dinner table had been a fixture of the Rook for as long as she could remember, and never had she asked her father any questions about it. Now, though? She knew it was handcrafted by Jason Weatherby in 1912, in the months of April and May, and it was purchased in February of 1913 by Calliope Lovegood. It was made of wood taken from three cheery trees that grew a short distance from each other, and the age of those trees was—

"Well?"

Looking away from the table to cut off the unceasing rush of information, she groaned when she instead started learning everything there was to know about the stone walls and the pots and pans and the pattern of the snowfall outside. "It's all a bit much," she admitted as she turned to look at her best friend.

And then she screamed in horror.

"Luna? What's wrong?" Jen demanded, completely oblivious to the crimson tears running down her cheeks. Pitiless pitch replaced the purple of her irises. She took a step forwards, and the motion set the sleeveless gown of black gauze draped around her to swaying, the barbed silver clasps at her left shoulder and down her right side glittering cruelly. The arm reaching out was slathered in blood all the way up to her elbow; ruby streams fell from her fingertips to the floor in a fitful pitter-patter, and where her other hand slid over the surface of the table she left a trail of gore.

"Why are you covered in blood?!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," the older girl answered, and a single word followed that statement like a damning echo.

 _LIE_.

Luna shook her head, terror clawing up her throat as she backed away. "Tell me the truth! Damn you, Jen, I deserve to know the truth!"

* * *

Ma'at. It was the only explanation. That bloody buggering  _bitch_.

Jen took a deep breath and let it out in a silent sigh. She had wondered which Light Power was responsible for creating the Diadem, and now she knew. It was obvious in hindsight, really. None of the Powers held dominion over knowledge or wisdom or cunning. But truth? And not just truth, but  _Truth_? The past, the future, and the hidden nature of things were all Ma'at's area of expertise.

And she had thought giving Luna the Diadem was an appropriate apology for being involved in the slaughter of practically her entire family, too. It seemed there was more truth in the phrase  _'no good deed goes unpunished'_  than she had once thought.

Still, that was a matter to mull over later. Right now, she had a different crisis to handle. Could she lie like the fae and get around the incredible insight the Diadem undoubtedly granted Luna with carefully crafted statements and evasions, or would it reveal lies of omission as well? If the latter were the case….

She really did not want to end this visit by rewriting her girlfriend's memory. That would cast a definite pall over the evening.

"I can't answer a question unless I know what you mean," she tried. Conditional statements were easy to twist; so long as the consequence was connected to the condition, whether her response answered Luna's question was irrelevant. She did not know what Luna was seeing when looking at her, but she could hazard a guess. That was undoubtedly why Luna was sure she had lied with her denial. "What do you see?"

"Your hands are  _dripping_  with blood," Luna accused. "And your dress, and your face…. What is this? Jen, it looks like you just  _murdered_  somebody!"

This was all leading down a road Jen truly did not wish to walk down. The longer this conversation went on, the higher the chances that Luna would stumble onto her involvement with the massacre of House Buckley. Thankfully, there was an easy answer. "Of course I've killed people," she said, quirking one eyebrow at the blonde's expression of disbelief. "You knew that already. The Muggles who attacked Hogsmeade last year, and the werewolves, and the two Death Eaters who were with You-Know-Who. I never made any secret about killing them."

That reminder drained the abhorrence out of the other girl. Luna murmured, "I forgot about that. Tracey and I were just Stunning them, the same as everyone else on the Three Broomsticks's roof. And it isn't like you've killed anyone else, right?"

"Are we counting the dragon during the Triwizard Tournament?" she asked in a forcibly light voice.  _Don't ask, Luna. Don't ask_ ….

"Jen?" And she was going to ask, after all. "Did you kill anybody before them?"

Jen ground her teeth silently. Any deflection was going to be seen for exactly what it was, and lying outright would do her no good. She hated closed-ended questions like this. "Yes."

"How many?" Luna whispered with wide eyes.

"I don't know. I haven't kept a tally or anything." She probably could come up with a definite number if she really thought about it, but that was an honest answer, and it was certainly better than the actual total. "Do you know how old I was the first time?" she said before Luna could ask anything else. "I was seven, and the man I killed? The same bastard who thought raping a little girl was the height of fun. I don't regret that at all. Nor do I regret the gang members who were breaking into homes and murdering people. Nor do I regret the drug dealers or the muggers or the child abusers."

And then there were the occasional innocents who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but looking back, she was actually rather pleased to realize that those individuals formed the minority of her victims. The rest she could all classify as incredibly disproportionate karmic retribution.

Luna took several hasty steps away from her, and she lowered her voice. "I have never pretended to be a good person. Some people would call me a monster, and I cannot disagree. After two and a half years, you should have realized that already."

"But you always say that you aren't like your mother," the blonde retorted, squaring her shoulders as though preparing for Jen to attack her then and there. "Or was that a lie, too?"

That hurt, and if anything, it was proof that keeping her crimes secret was the right decision. Would any of her supposed friends have been willing even to try understanding the reasons behind her murders? Not that they would be able to without also understanding her connection to Death, but just making the attempt? Tracey might, she decided; the Slytherin had understood why she killed the previous Lord Davis, the girl's own grandfather, after all, even if Tracey had had to force herself to admit that she was happier and safer with him in the ground.

"My mother kills for pleasure. Torture and murder give her some sick enjoyment. That is her sole motivation. I  _don't_  enjoy killing." She paused to let that statement sink in and so Luna could realize she was being completely honest. Death was a necessity if she wished to earn the Baron's favor, but personally, she felt nothing afterwards. No pleasure, but similarly no guilt. That detail Luna did not need to know. "Every time I killed, it was for a  _reason_. Each death served a  _purpose_. I do not kill frivolously or wantonly."

Jen turned and walked to the window, carefully working over her concluding statement. Being caught in a lie now due to careless phrasing would destroy the last of whatever trust she had managed to salvage. Not 'needed'. 'Had'? Not that, either, but closer. Ah, that was it. "If I never had cause to kill another person, I would be perfectly content avoiding it for the rest of my life. But after fending off You-Know-Who? With my mother, who is legitimately insane and cares far less about me than she does her devotion to the Dark Lord? We both know that isn't an option. Not in the near future, anyway.

"I expect you no do not want me here right now," she said, moving back to the chair where she had laid her coat and scarf and picking them up. "So I'll go. If you no longer wish for us to continue our relationship, I… I won't like it," she admitted, "but I will understand. And I do ask that you keep what I have told you to yourself. You don't need to worry that I'm going to come after you to make sure you stay quiet or anything, but…." The smile she gave the blonde was more of a grimace. "But maybe in honor of the friendship we had?"

Luna worried her bottom lip for a long moment. Reaching up to remove the Diadem from her brow, her fingers stopped as soon they brushed the metal. "You said the Diadem isn't fond of you. What did you mean?"

"It burned me when I picked it up, just like the pendant you have. They share some quality that makes it painful for me to touch them." Jen sincerely hoped Luna left it at that. If this line of inquiry were pushed any further, she might not have any choice but to mess with Luna's mind, and right now, she could accept Luna knowing this. So long as the blonde did not reveal anything to anyone else, she could adjust; even if it spelled the end of their relationship, so long as it could be explained away without requiring a confession to the DMLE, she could live with it. And if Luna did inform the DMLE….

Well, she would still have options even then, distasteful though most of them were. Hopefully she was just being paranoid.

"I… I won't tell anyone," Luna agreed, finally taking off the Treasure. "That's all I can promise right now. I… I need time."

"I know. Goodbye."

The emerald fires wrapped around her, and she followed the whirling path from Luna's home to her own. First her kids at Candyland forgot about her, and now she was on the outs with her girlfriend with the risk of being investigated for multiple murders, all because she was reluctant to steal back the Diadem and rewrite Luna's memory. What other unpleasant surprises did this day have planned for her? She stepped out and dumped her overwear on a chair, unwilling to meet the curious glance Sirius sent her from across the room. "Is everything okay?" he asked when the silence dragged on too long.

"Honestly?" she asked with a watery laugh at the irony. "I don't know. I may be getting dumped by New Year's. Or I may not. I just don't know."

He walked over and pulled her to his chest, and her shoulders shook with the tears she refused to shed.

* * *

The door closed with a heavy thump behind him, and Draco clenched his fists tight. It was the only thing keeping him from barging back into his father's office, the punishment he was sure to receive for that egregious show of disrespect be damned.

Was his father blind or just stupid?! The way they had been doing things was not working, and that was a sign that something different needed to be considered, not that they should keep beating their heads against the same wall again and again! That was the Gryffindor course of action. Slytherins were supposed to watch, wait, and adapt, but no, that clearly was not good enough for Lucius Malfoy, not at all. All his father was willing to see was the price of his plan, not the chances for success!

Was it expensive? Yes, but better to spend money now and avoid suspicion entirely than to wait to spend it until everyone was sure of their guilt.

He stormed through the halls, fuming over all the difficulties the new limits on his access to the family finances would create. He was close, too; that was the worst part. It was just like an investment: he sank a lot of gold into the plan at the beginning, then he added a little more along the way for upkeep, and finally he would collect the dividends. But he still needed that slow trickle of funds to make sure it got to that final stage!

"Oh, is the wittle dwagon upset?" came a sickening coo from behind him. "Is he gonna cwy?"

 _Don't yell at the sadistic madwoman. She'll just hurt you again. Say nothing and walk away._  "Now really isn't a good time, Aunt Bellatrix."

Fabric swished, the skirt of a dress moving closer. "It isn't?" his crazy aunt asked with a faint laugh. "Did daddy dearest take away your allowance? Poor, poor Drakie-poo."

"It isn't the money!" he snapped, almost instantly regretting the sudden flash of temper. So much for not yelling at her. "It's that he refuses to even consider trying something different! He's so set on continuing on the same path that he won't look at any other options!"

He jumped when he felt a breath blow against the back of his ear. When had she gotten that close?! "What's this?" The black-haired witch whirled him around, two fingers pinching his left cheek hard and pulling his head down until they were nose to nose and staring at each other. He had no idea what she was looking for, but if her wand hand was busy, it meant she was not cursing him. Though that, he knew, could change in an instant. "Is the little lord opening his eyes? Does he see his worthless father cowering now that he no longer has anyone protecting him? Tell me, my precious nephew; what childish plot has hatched inside that head of yours that you are so proud of?"

This time he did keep his indignation hidden, and he explained what he had accomplished and what still needed to be done. As he spoke, his words tumbled out faster and faster, dread bubbling up at the witch's unchanging, stony expression.

When he finally ran out of things to say, she pulled away and looked at him for a long, terrifying moment. A sound escaped her then, breathy and light. The corners of her mouth twitched. She huffed, the sound like…. No.

Bubbling, almost giddy, laughter filled the hall. Not a cackle or a mocking snicker; actual laughter. It was the most terrifying sound he had ever heard in his life. "Your mother is a traitor and a freak, but she named you well," his aunt declared with a wide smile. "Oh, that is perfect. And you are sure you can make this happen?"

"I've already started. I just need—"

"More gold. Yes, yes, I know." She eagerly rubbed her palms together. "Can you last a little longer with what you already have? Then have patience. I will get you all you need and more. In return, you will give me a role in the final act. I want to see her face when the curtains close."

"That," he said, a smile of his own growing on his face, "I think I can manage."

* * *

Blood magic, Jen reflected as she painted elaborate symbols on the table around her, was an interesting branch of the Dark Arts. It had a number of useful applications, most of which fell into the category of manipulating either the mind or the body. Oaths that truly could not be broken, revitalizing dead tissue, changing somebody's genetic structure; all highly useful skills to have from time to time. But what she was about to do? This might be the strangest thing she had ever heard of anyone using it for.

It was not Muggleborns the most rabid of the blood purists had to worry about stealing their magical gifts. It was succubi, goblins, and blood mages.

The runes complete, she hopped off the top of the table and looked into a white plastic bowl filled with water and a chunk of pink muscle. She had a number of means available to her with which to persuade people to do things, but in just the last month she had run into two situations where those methods would not have worked. She could not threaten or bribe or seduce Priest into telling Menagerie to cease her senseless slaughter of the Buckleys, nor could she convince Luna not to pry into her history as a serial killer. She needed another option, something she could use when her other skills were sure to fail. She needed some way to give herself the kind of charisma few humans possessed.

"That's where you come in," she murmured, pulling the tongue out of the bowl and hefting it in her hand. The Lilin were best known for luring people into their beds so they might feed on their partners' life forces, and she had replicated the natural aura they normally used for that, but she had seen Stella Zabini speak in the Wizengamot and convince the wizards and – more importantly – the witches there into acceding to her demands for the increased protection of this species and that group. The fact that she could sway presumably heterosexual witches was important, for much like the Allure of the Veela, the Lilin's aura was only effective on those individuals who were sexually attracted to them. Further research had instead led her to discover a much less commonly discussed power that the succubus was using: an unnatural ability to deflect suspicion from themselves and convince people, generally their partners' spouses, of their innocence in beginning the affair. It was a strategy she herself could use in case, say, the DMLE came to call in regard to certain allegations made against her. All she needed was, to use the colloquial phrase, a silver tongue.

When she had pillaged Blaise Zabini's body after murdering him, she had not only taken his heartblood and his skull. She had taken his entire head to render down later, and though she had not known what good it would be at the time, she had shoved a number of his organs, tongue included, into jars of preservative in case she ever needed them for anything. Now she knew what it could be used for.

Conjuring a scalpel, she carefully made a longitudinal slice down the middle of the top of Zabini's tongue, then added four horizontal lines at equal distances along the first cut. The  _edad_  rune of the Ogham script functioned to enhance its bearer's ability to communicate, and that character would serve as the interface so the blood magic could catch hold. She just needed to place one on herself. The girl she saw in the mirror before her did not look enthusiastic about that in the slightest. Sticking out her tongue, she gripped the tip between the teeth of the pliers that appeared in her hand and made the first incision.

"Ah! Buggah." This was not going to work. Healing the crooked line her reflexive withdrawal from pain had caused, she looked down at the knife, and then at the pliers. She reformed the head of the tool with a wince. Oh Baron, this was going to hurt.

Again she stuck out her tongue, and though she whined when the new hooks pierced all the way through the muscle, her tongue could not slip out of her grasp now. She pulled it to its full length and slowly made the five cuts, taking her time to let the pained shuddering fade as much as it would. Her skin was used to being cut; for her tongue, it was her first time, and she was being anything but gentle.

She gasped when she could finally throw down the hooked pliers, and she grabbed the incubus's tongue and dashed back to the table. The sooner she finished this, the better. Laying his tongue on top of hers, tip to tip and rune to rune, she pushed her power through the runes she had drawn with the heartblood Borgin sold her the previous year. The symbols lifted off the wood, crimson liquid transforming into ribbons of dull light, and then they straightened out and joined into one long strip that wrapped around her throat. Steeling herself, she pulled her tongue back into her mouth and swallowed.

Ice exploded in her mouth, choking her as she tried to hack it out, and then it was gone. The taste of blood still filled her mouth, but with her sonar she could easily tell that it was all coming from the small hole she had made, and that was easily repaired. Of the lines, there was no sign.

Stepping down again, she checked her tongue in the mirror. The five incisions were all scarred over, looking like they were years old rather than seconds, and…. She tilted her head and shifted her tongue in the light from the lamp. Sure enough, there was just a bit of a shine there, almost as if she had sprinkled a tiny bit of silver flake into the cuts.

"Aaaaaaah," she vocalized, listening for any change in the note. "Maybe it needs words?" No, she still could not hear a difference. On the one hand, that was good; if nobody knew she had done anything, they would not be suspicious of the fact that she had become more persuasive overnight. On the other hand, she had no idea if the pseudo-ritual had worked beyond giving her some fancy scars.

She sighed and flipped off the lamp. She would just have to experiment with it.

* * *

**Did you think Ravenclaw's Diadem was just going to sit in that box for the rest of the series? Absolutely not. I** _**had** _ **to fire that Chekov's gun.**

**Remember, kids. Honesty and trust will make your relationship stronger… unless you're a sociopathic serial killer. Then you might want to keep lying.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	21. The Measure of Evil

**Madrigal-in-training:**  It's interesting that you brought up Jen's statements that she would pick herself over her family. Yes, she has  _said_  that, but there is a key difference between that and her scene with Luna: she hasn't been in the former situation. So far, it has been a purely intellectual exercise. If you had asked her what she would do should Luna find out about her kills  _before_  she was in it, she would have said that she would wipe Luna's mind without hesitation.

You'll have to see what she does if she ever really has to make a decision between herself and her family.

 **WillItWork:**  I don't think the ending will be a sad one, for whatever that's worth. The Buckleys' death, Jen's 'guilt' about it, and Luna finding out about Jen's kill count have all been planned since I named the Buckleys way back in  _Princess of the Blacks_  as a way to give Jen a push in terms of character development. It won't be pretty or gentle, and if she were real I'd be running for my life, but it is necessary, and I think she'll come out the other side stronger and with a clearer idea of just who she is. Luna finding out was meant to be a strain on their relationship rather than the breaking point as it is turning into, admittedly, but they've been limping along for most of this book, and that's due to me trying to keep the ship intact despite characterization. I like Jen, and I utterly adore Luna (which should not come as a surprise to anybody), and I think they're cute together. Unfortunately, they have very different personalities and goals, and over the course of the story they have fallen victim to the old adage "Opposites attract, but likes stay together". Might as well give them a clean break and see if I can manage to salvage their friendship.

As for the free rituals, she still has all three waiting for her. Evocation, immersion scrying, and blood magic are not truly black magic because they don't pull on Death's powers. That's magic any witch can use.

**Shorter chapter than normal, but between vacation and moving into my new house, I just haven't had a lot of free time. Also, since I'm starting my residency on Monday, I cannot guarantee any regularity in my update schedule.**

* * *

**Chapter 21  
** **The Measure of Evil**

Two Ravenclaws and two Hufflepuffs were seated at a table in the back of the library, and Tracey pulled out a chair and joined them. "Does anyone have any clue what's going on with those two?"

Morag and Padma shook their heads, and the Indian witch replied, "We've tried hinting around the subject, but neither of them has admitted anything. They just keep saying that they need to figure some stuff out."

Tracey blew out a huff of frustration. Ordinarily, she would not get involved in someone else's romantic misadventures or relationship problems. She had told Luna that the less she knew about the details of the blonde's private time with Jen, the happier she would be. More to the point, having heard Luna's complaints about Jen's courting, she had doubts about just how long any relationship between such very different people could last. Under any other circumstances, she would stand back and let the couple sink or swim on their own. Far less trouble for her.

But Jen and Luna were just such miserable people to be around right now! It was obvious that something was wrong as soon as the new term started the previous week, and the evidence supporting that conclusion had only gotten stronger as the days passed. When they had to be in the same place, such as in all their classes, the brunette was distant and preoccupied and the blonde was frigid and standoffish, a strange reversal of their normal personalities. When they were separate, however, they were mopey and irritable. Or at least Jen was, she corrected herself, since between Jen and Luna, she much preferred spending time with the former and had done so now that the couple was on the outs.

Jen was her best friend. Luna – while nice enough as a person and, yes, a decent friend in her own right – Tracey still classified primarily as Jen's girlfriend.

"Do you think it has anything to do with Jen's courting?" Justin cautiously suggested. "I mean, that hasn't been done in the Muggle world for centuries, so I understand why Luna was so frustrated about it before we left."

"But that's to be expected for anyone of our status in society," Susan reminded him. "If Auntie were still the acting Head of House Bones, I'd be in the same situation. Tracey too."

Padma nodded in agreement, but Morag appeared conflicted. "I can see both sides of that. My grandda offered to arrange a marriage if I was interested in someone from a Noble House, and my parents have always encouraged me to aim for someone higher up the social ladder than we are, but that's all been if I was interested in it. I was never told that I had to do it, and I don't know how I'd deal with being in love with one person but being forced to marry someone else."

The redhead Badger fought to contain her smile. "I don't think it's as bad as all that. She didn't seem to mind being escorted by Viktor Krum to this year's Solstice Ball. It makes me wonder if the rumors floating around after the fourth task of the Triwizard Tournament about the two of them weren't based on some truth, after all."

"But that wouldn't explain why they're acting like this all on its own," Padma said. "Not unless…. Do you think Luna gave Jen an ultimatum?  _'Stop courting, or we're through_ '?"

That made more sense than not, and Tracey found herself nodding in agreement. "Which one Jen would pick is obvious. She and Lord Black are the only ones who can continue the line, and he isn't in any hurry to find a wife. If she had to choose between Luna and House Black, she'd pick her family without hesitation."

"And since Luna would expect Jen to pick her, I can't see that ending well," muttered Justin.

"So what are we going to do about it?"

The lone Slytherin turned an incredulous stare onto the Scottish witch. "Why do you think we should do anything? This is their problem. If we interfere, you know Jen won't take it well."

"Even if it makes things easier between them?"

"Maybe if she felt guilty about choosing her House, but I'm sure she feels like she made the right choice. If I were in her shoes, I would have done the same thing." Tracey shook her head. "She's not going to apologize for that, and that's what it would take for them to get back together. And that assumes we're even right about Luna giving an ultimatum."

"It's the best guess we have," Padma countered, "and since neither one of them has said anything, guesses are all we have to work from. I don't think we need to get in the middle of their lovers' spat, either, but I do think Morag has a point about smoothing things over. You remember how easily everything went last year once they figured out they were expecting different things from their relationship, right? After she caught Jen 'cheating' on her with other witches?" Everyone at the table nodded in understanding. "Maybe we can do something similar to help them patch up their friendship if not their relationship. Remind them of why they liked each other to begin with, but this time with the knowledge that they have incompatible priorities for their future lives. Just because they broke up doesn't mean they can't still be friends."

The others frowned at the immensity of the task the Indian witch had proposed.

"…Right?"

"We could give it a try," Susan finally agreed. "I don't how much success we would have, but even if all we do is talk to them, we might be able to give them a little help in that area. We'd have to be delicate about it, though. Tracey's right about Jen not taking it well, and Luna would catch on, too. Neither of them is stupid. Tracey, you have the closest relationship with Jen; do you think you can talk to her about this?"

She was extraordinarily tempted to say no and stay out of the way, but after a long moment she sighed. "I'll try. She's made it clear that she doesn't want to, but I might be able to nudge her into dropping some hints about just what was said."

"That's a good start. I could talk with Luna since I'm in almost the same circumstances that Jen is, but it might be best if you talk to her first, Morag. You already said that you understand both sides of this."

"I can talk with Jen with Tracey," offered Justin. "Since it seems like Luna's perspective on this is a lot like the Muggle world's, I can best imagine how she feels."

Padma looked over the other four. "I'm not going to like what my part in all this, am I?"

"Well, it was your plan," said Susan with a sheepish smile. "They shouldn't need a go-between or anything, but maybe you could hop back and forth between both groups when it's necessary? You and Justin have the closest to outsider perspectives— Does India still do arranged marriages?"

"It depends on how traditional the family is. My father has a similar opinion to Morag's grandfather, it sounds like; he would rather see me married well, but if I fell in love with someone poorer than us, I don't think he'd actually refuse me. Try his best to talk me out of it, certainly, but eventually he would allow it. Parvati he planned to force into marriage whether she wanted it or not, but that had more to do with her than him, and it isn't on the table anymore, anyway."

Everyone at the table grimaced at that reminder of the other Patil's lycanthropy.

"You might want to spend more time with Luna, then," Tracey suggested, "especially if she forced Jen to make a choice. I talked with her about why Jen would go through with the marriage back in October, but I don't know how much she really paid attention to me. It might be that she only listened enough to put up with everything for a couple more months."

"The next Edinburgh weekend is in just a couple of weeks." They all looked at Justin in confusion at the non sequitur. "That might be a good goal to aim for. If we can't get them even to talk to each other by then, that might be the time to rethink our strategy."

That was as good a suggestion as any. Morag, Padma, and Susan focused on their plans for convincing Luna to open up, and Tracey turned to Justin with a sigh. Two weeks to weasel details of their confrontation from Jen. Because that was not going to be a herculean task at all.

* * *

"No."

"But you two were so close before we left for the winter hols, Luna. Surely you can spend just an hour with her."

"I said no."

Padma shared an exasperated look with Morag and Susan. They knew that convincing Luna to spend time with Jen would be difficult, but as the days went by, they were beginning to think they had still underestimated just how difficult it would be. It had taken most of a week just to get her to open up about anything more personal than classes and homework, and even then, any hint that they wanted to talk about Jen was met with stony silence and sharp stares.

"We know you're mad at her," Morag said, abandoning all pretense of subtlety, "and we understand why. If my boyfriend had—"

"That's what you think it's about?" Luna shook her head quickly, her hair nearly slapping her in the face. "I don't even care about that anymore. She can do whatever she wants. It just won't involve me."

The look the girls shared this time was confused. If it were relationship difficulties, that declaration of apathy would be a distressing sign, but that did not explain why the blonde would say Jen's hunt for a husband had nothing to do with her attitude. "What is it about, then?"

"It's not important."

"Clearly it is," Susan tried with newfound confidence. Not that Padma could blame her; sad as it was to consider, this was the most Luna had said about the nature of her frustration. "We can see this eating away at you. Maybe we can help, and even if we can't, you can't just bottle this all up inside."

Luna's resolve was visibly weakening under the assault of the girls' pleading expressions. She looked around at the few people scattered about inside Edinburgh Court's stationary shop, and almost to herself she whispered, "She… She isn't who I thought she was. Who any of us thought she was."

"What do you mean?" prompted the Badger just as quietly.

"Jen's k— She's hurt people. Attacked them."

That was not what they expected to hear. "When you say attacked," Morag began, "what exactly do you mean?"

"Just what I said. Attacked them. Assaulted them." Luna glanced around them again, but when she was sure no one was eavesdropping, she kept her eyes on the ground rather than meeting theirs. "Almost killed them."

Voice hardening as the niece of a DMLE director came out, Susan all but demanded, "When did she tell you this?"

"Christmas Eve."

"Did she say how many?"

"No." Luna laughed humorlessly. "She doesn't even know how many people she's hurt."

Padma really was not sure what to say to that. They had all assumed this was something comparatively minor, but if Luna were telling the truth, they were dealing with something far more serious. She could never imagine intentionally hurting another person; even when the Death Eaters attacked Hogsmeade, she had focused on reinforcing the building and repairing any damage that occurred rather than on attacking. Luna and Tracey and Susan had been on the roof, and they all used spells to incapacitate and capture.

But in that same fight, Jen was one of the few who used lethal spells, her and some of the older Slytherins. She had not seemed to care about that, and while Padma had not thought much of it at the time, it was more worrying now. If nothing else, it was evidence that Jen had no problems with hurting people. Had she killed those Death Eaters and werewolves not because she felt like she had no other choice but just because she  _liked_  it? That made her sound like a monster, like Bellatrix—

Oh.  _Ohhhh_.

Padma kneaded her forehead. Of course. That explained things. It was still disturbing news, but now that the surprise was wearing off, it was no longer quite so unexpected. She had recognized Jen's capacity for violence before now, and she had even worried a time or ten about just what might set the other Ravenclaw off. But that was the thing; each time she half-expected Jen to lash out and savage somebody, it had always been in response to that other person's actions. "Did she say anything about why she attacked them?"

"She tried to justify it by saying that they were drug dealers and child abusers, but just because they were terrible people doesn't mean what she did was right!"

Yes, that made much more sense. Terrible people, dangerous people, and if there was anything that would rouse the viciousness and cruelty Jen had inherited from her evil mother, it was dealing with dangerous people. The werewolves who followed You-Know-Who had found that out firsthand.

"No, it doesn't. But even if it isn't right, how wrong is it?" The other girls stared at her in shock. "In two years, we've seen Jen get mean. To Potter and his friends, to McLaggen and the other people who ambushed her in the Shrieking Shack, to the Death Eaters. I've never seen her start those fights, though." She paused, unsure of just how to put her thoughts into words. "What if she hurt them because they hurt somebody else first? I mean, if they are the kind of people she said they were, that's almost to be expected. Or what if she hurt them to protect others, like she did last year when You-Know-Who attacked?"

"It's still wrong," Susan said. "Maybe excusable, but not right. Legally…." She sighed. "There it gets complicated. Attacking someone isn't justifiable unless they are an immediate threat to another's safety, and even then, she should have contacted somebody in law enforcement. The thing is, since we haven't heard about any of this until now, these people are probably Muggles. That means it isn't in the DMLE's jurisdiction unless she's obviously using magic. The Muggles wouldn't be able to catch her, though, and if she really does only go after criminals, I don't know how much effort they would put in to trying. I know there are Patrolmen who would focus on other crimes first and put only a token effort into looking for a vigilante, and I can only assume that there are Muggle Patrolmen who would feel the same way."

"Wait, so this is suddenly all okay?" demanded Morag.

"No, it's not okay, but it also isn't unexpected," Padma said. "We knew she was Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter. Having a Death Eater as a parent is going to leave a mark. She has no memories of her mother, but they still share blood, and she said last year that her mother was half-crazed when she was our age. Even with James Potter being her father and dulling the worst of Jen's darker traits, there will still be some. I'm almost less surprised that Jen attacked those people than that she didn't kill them."

Luna flinched at that.

The Scottish witch frowned. "So you're saying that this, Jen attacking people, is inevitable or something? That she didn't have a choice in the matter? I don't believe that."

"Before this summer, neither did I. Parvati was never a violent person; she couldn't even stand watching Grandfather kill a chicken for dinner. But now, even when she's a person and not a wolf, she's different. More aggressive, more confrontational. She went to go hunting with my uncle, which she's always refused before, and supposedly she volunteered to do all the butchering. Jen isn't a werewolf, but she is the child of a monster. Parv doesn't have choice in how she is now. Neither might Jen, and that would mean that what she's been doing is honestly the best she is capable of."

Looking at the doubtful faces before her, she sighed. "We know who she is, what she's like. She's kind and thoughtful and clever. She's also protective, violently so, and quick to retaliate. Is it more likely that she was secretly hiding an evil side of herself from us for almost three years or that this is just more of the same we already know about her?"

"If you ask something like  _'how many evil acts must a good person do before they become an evil person'_ , I'm going to hit you. You know how much I hate philosophy," Morag groused. If she was trying to lighten the mood, the Indian witch thought, she was failing abysmally.

Luna looked at her with wide eyes. "What are you saying? That we should let it go? That what she's done isn't important?"

"No, that's not it at all. Hearing what she's done is surprising, and it's something to think about. I'm just saying that while it sounds terrible, there might be extenuating circumstances. If all the people she's hurt first hurt some third party, especially someone she felt she was obligated to protect? Or even just that she felt they  _might_  hurt some of her people? I could see her removing that threat by whatever means she felt necessary. And…."

Looking over her friends, she sighed again. Thorny ethical dilemmas were not what she planned to tackle when she was getting ready for a trip outside the castle. "It's an uncomfortable revelation about her actions, but does it change who she is? This is something Jen has done for a while. We didn't know about it, but that was still part of what makes her Jen, just like everything I do makes me Padma even though you don't know every little detail. Obviously, this is bigger than some innocent little habit, but…. I don't know how much it will or should influence how we see and treat her. That's a decision we're all going to have to make for ourselves."

"So you're going to ignore it?" Luna almost demanded. "Even knowing that she won't stop on her own? Just turn your head and pretend it isn't happening?"

For all the blonde's aggression, Padma could hear a thread of doubt creeping into her voice. And why wouldn't it? Luna had heard Jen's confession and – understandably – leapt to the worst possible conclusion. Only now was she thinking about it a little deeper, and as they were talking, the waters were getting murkier. It still was not a good thing Jen was doing, but it maybe, just maybe, it wasn't exactly evil, either. Neither black nor white, but some undecided shade of grey.

"I don't know for sure yet, but…." She shook her head. "But I made the decision last year, after finding out who Jen's mother was and just how awful she was, that what mattered most to me was what kind of person I saw with my own eyes. What I saw, what I  _see_ , is someone who tries to do right by her friends and her family. Jen has her flaws: she's arrogant; she's impatient and short-tempered, especially recently; she's quick to dismiss people she doesn't know. But I have flaws, too, and I would hope my friends would focus more on my good qualities than my bad. This is different – I mean, what she's done is a crime – but if she was doing it for good reasons, or if it's the best of a bad set of options… I don't know that it will make me change my mind."

Luna now looked even less certain of her position, and Morag and Susan were both visibly conflicted. Not that Padma could blame them. "I guess," Susan said, "it's a decision we'll need to think about. I don't know what mine will be. I… I think I need to talk to Auntie about it first."

Padma grimaced; depending on how Susan's aunt responded to this news, that could make matters all the more complicated. Before she could say anything, however, Luna spoke up. "Don't. I shouldn't have told you this much. I told her I wouldn't say anything, and if she finds out…"

"Do you think she's going to hurt you?" Susan asked, voice heating once again.

"I… I don't know. She said she wouldn't, but…." Luna looked down. "After all this? I'll be honest: she scares me. Just knowing that she's capable of doing this, even if we aren't in danger…. I always thought anyone who got tangled up with those people had only themselves to blame, but now I know that one is… was…. I thought Jen was my best friend. But I didn't know her at all, really, did I?"

Morag slung an arm over the little blonde's shoulders.

The redhead sighed. "I wasn't going to name names. I don't know how much help it will be, but I remember that a couple of years ago, she had to deal with a Hit Wizard who started taking justice into his own hands. I just want to know what she thought of that situation."

"I don't know what I think about all this, either," admitted Morag, giving Luna a squeeze. "This isn't something I've ever given much thought."

The four girls who left the store were far quieter than those who had entered.

* * *

Danny peered through the window of the cozy cafe. There was Black, wandering into the sweets shop along with the Slytherin, Davis, as well as Finch-Fletchley. He did not see the rest of her retinue, which was unusual, but he supposed that could prove to be an advantage. His mum wanted him to let her know when Black was somewhere near a Floo so she could come and talk to his sister and—

And do what, exactly? They had all tried to reach out to Black multiple times, and each time they did, she threw their apologies and desires to bring her into the family back in their faces. She claimed that she did not want their apologies, that she did not want their support. She was, by all appearances, quite happy spending her time with Slytherins and blood purists and pretending she was a haughty Pureblood.

Well, fine. He could not help someone who did not want to be helped. If she wanted to wallow in the gutter, that was her decision. Maybe she would come to her senses one day and realize how far down the road to being a true Dark witch she had walked, but considering how arrogant and self-absorbed she was, it would take something truly awful happening to her to break through the walls she had wrapped around herself.

Something soft brushed against the back of his hand, but by the time he glanced down, the delicate fingers were already retreating. "Danny? Is everything all right?"

"It's fine, Ginny. Just thinking about something."

"I hope I'm not that boring."

"No, no." The girl smiled prettily, and he looked away before his cheeks could turn any redder. For most of his life, he had considered Ginny Ron's little sister, and that was just about it. Even asking her to the Yule Ball in his fourth year had been more so he could have a date and wouldn't be the only champion left on his own.

He had not realized just how much she had grown up. Her rich red hair fell in ringlets around her face, and the light streaming in through the window made her pink lipstick shimmer. The thin robes, earlier covered by a more season-appropriate overcoat, left much of her milky shoulders bare and teased at curves he had never paid much attention to until recently. Her pursuing him was not the normal way of things, but it was definitely proving to be better for him than his own ill-fated attempts to grab Cho Chang's attention. Chancing another look at her face, he smiled when he found her eyes. "You could never be boring."

Now it was her turn to blush, and after a moment she fluttered her eyelashes at him teasingly.

Black was no longer his problem. He had wasted Merlin knew how much time over the last two years trying to get close to his sister, but if she wanted to be off by herself instead of with people who cared about her, he was more than happy to oblige her. Why should he worry about her when he had his own life to live?

Ginny stretched out her hand again, and he reached out to brush his fingertips against hers. If he was going to spend all his time thinking about a girl, it would be one he actually wanted to spend time with.

* * *

**Special thanks to Jack Inqu, The Sinful, and Wolfman217 for their suggestions regarding the second scene.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	22. Darker than Black

**I don't know what it was with this chapter, but I found myself writing in 200-word spurts rather than a steady stream like I normally do. Hopefully that won't continue to be a problem.**

* * *

**Chapter 22  
** **Darker than Black**

Jen warily eyed the copse of trees sitting before them. It looked like someone had cut out a section of ancient, undisturbed jungle and transplanted it directly into an urban park. A taunt referencing their attack on the Buckleys, perhaps? Regardless, the Muggles' reaction, or lack thereof, to the bizarre sight made it clear that magic was involved. This had been set up for them. "This has to be a trap."

"It undoubtedly is," Priest agreed, "which is unusual for him. The Turk normally pursues his foes, not lies in wait for them."

"So why is he acting differently now?"

"We do not normally work so closely with his targets as we have with you. For just the two of us to work together as well as we do took time, and we do not have enough time to build those same understandings when the Turk goes hunting. You have actually been unusually accommodating in that regard."

She gave that comment a thoughtful hum, her attention still focused on the trees. "You're sure he's in there?"

"He has erected his elemental anti-scrying wards, so we can not know for a fact that he is there, but between the ineffectiveness of Menagerie's splanchomancy and the sudden appearance of this miniature forest last week, I highly doubt that he is anywhere else. Not to mention," he added with a disinterested tone, "I saw a figure dressed in a white robe enter the forest about three hours ago."

"Lead with that next time," she told him sharply. "There are wards against teleportation over the area?"

"Yes."

That was as much proof they were going to get about the Turk's whereabouts until they flushed him out, she supposed. "He's in there waiting for us, and we know it's a trap. What's the plan?"

"His plan, presumably, is to force us to enter the trees so he can slip behind us and attack without us knowing it. Or, possibly, he means to lead us in while he leaves and bring down the woods in their entirety, crushing us beneath the enormous weight. We shall do something similar."

"You have a spell that will knock over an entire forest?" she asked, one eyebrow arched.

"No, I do not. What we do have, however, is fire."

"…I have to admit, I'm starting to like this plan."

Priest grinned at her, the expression containing more of an edge than it normally did. Of course finally gaining an advantage over their enemy would be what tapped into what was left of his emotions. "I thought you might. Menagerie has already claimed the side by the coffeehouse, though I believe that was so she can purchase refreshments whenever she desired as much as anything else. You stay here, and I will take the last third. If we engulf the entire perimeter, we will know where the Turk is from where the water comes from, and then we can kill him while he is fully occupied with protecting himself from the flames." She nodded in understanding, but he cautioned, "Make sure you use something other than normal fire. So long as there is some additional quality, particularly if it is dark magic, he will not be able to hide behind a Flame-Freezing Charm."

A ball of blue and white flames appeared in her hand. "I've got that covered."

The African mage climbed down from the rooftop, leaving her alone with her flames and her thoughts. The news that her allies had found the Turk was actually a welcome distraction from the drama she had to deal with at Hogwarts. After the trip to Edinburgh, Luna's suspicion and distrust had lost some of their edge, though she had noticed Padma, Morag, and Susan shooting her strange glances when they thought she was not watching. Admittedly, she could not  _see_  them watching her, but she could certainly feel them. At first, she had been concerned that Luna might have broken the promise to keep the knowledge of her illicit activities to herself – in hindsight, she really should have erased her ex-girlfriend's memory of that night before she left, no matter how little she wanted to do such a thing – but that bout of paranoia had settled down on its own when their interactions with her remained unchanged and a company of Aurors had not descended upon Hogwarts to clap her in irons. All in all, things were starting to look up.

Looking up was not the same thing as back to normal, however. Luna might not be quite so prickly, but there still existed a gulf between them. A gulf that immediately began widening again as Valentine's Day approached. And it was an Edinburgh weekend, too, just to make the entire thing even more awkward. Several of her suitors were clamoring for her to join them on outings that Saturday, as her spending such a special day would be a huge coup for whichever wizard she was seen with, but she had nipped that in the bud as soon as Sirius's letter mentioned it. Next weekend she planned to spend with her family at Grimmauld Place, ignoring completely all the peculiarities and confusions of romance.

The signal for them to start came with Priest spraying his section of the woods with a torrent of fire, and she and Menagerie were quick to follow. The woods caught like tinder. Jen spread her cursed fire around the edge of the copse to make sure she completely blocked off any routes of escape, and only once that was complete did she command it to advance into the woods. And  _still_  the Muggles noticed nothing, she thought with a faint smile; they were walking around without a care, no more conscious of the destruction going on a hundred feet away than they had been of the trees' arrival in the first place. That woman walked from one small store to another, her two children following obediently. Those four teenagers still hid in an alleyway smoking. That man crossed the street, his white suit contrasting nicely with his olive skin—

His eyes rose to meet hers despite the Muggle-repelling charm she had cast over the rooftop.

"Shite!" She threw herself away from the edge of the building, a burst of force sending her farther than she could move unassisted. It was just enough to get her away from the spot where he appeared, the crack of his teleportation all but drowned out by the roar of the fires. The Turk flung his hands at her, and lightning crackled after her like vicious vipers.

The arcs of electricity splashed against the triangle of red light she formed in front of her. The  _Shchit Imperator_  shield, the same spell Voldemort had used to block her and Dora's attacks during the battle in Hogsmeade, was a powerful defense, one Flitwick knew of but had never taken advantage of because of its cost to the caster's reserves. Only true behemoths had the strength to hold such a shield up for any significant length of time, which, thankfully, she was. On the plus side, it was supposed to be able to withstand practically any attack, and considering how it was currently holding back the onslaught of white magic, she was willing to give some credit to those rumors.

A thin crack shot from the edge of the triangular shield almost to the center.

Before she had to worry seriously about just how much damage the shield could take before it broke, the Turk let off his assault and dodged out of the way of the night-black spear hurtling towards his back. A spear that shattered itself against her defense, which irritated her to no small degree; Priest really needed to make sure his attacks did not skewer his allies! The Turk deflected the next conjured spear with a blast of wind, another barrage of electric fury washing futilely over her shield for a moment. Then the first of Menagerie's creatures arrived, and though a bolt of lightning thicker than her wrist cooked that abomination from the inside out, the rest were not deterred in the slightest.

Knowing that he would not win this encounter, the Turk leapt over the edge. Wind wrapped around him in a howling spiral, and he shot into the sky. He was going to escape,  _again_ , and they would have to hunt him down  _again_.

"Oh no, you don't!"

She was done trying to hunt him down. Each time he had escaped, it had been weeks or months until they found him. This was going to end now if she had anything to say about it.

Jen's flight spell kicked into action, and she followed him as fast as she could. He shoved his hand at her, and though burning hot wind buffeted her, it did little more than knock her slightly off course. It also answered a question she had wondered about since they ambushed him in his flat. They knew that he could not use his wand while he used his Patron's powers, but she did not know if he could use multiple elements at the same time. Apparently he couldn't.

That was just too bad.

A jet of deep purple light flew from her right hand, and he swerved out of the way before it could touch him. A pity, that. That spell was of her own devising, something she had worked out in all the unexpected spare time she had now that she was single once more, and she had focused on isolating the corruptive elements of dark magic and making them more than just a side effect. This spell rusted metals and rotted flesh; not all that impressive on a practical level, not when there were spells that could do those things far more effectively, but she was curious what would happen if she hit a white mage with it.

The next blast of wind became a visible crescent as it fell towards her. This one she dodged, not willing to find out just what it would do to her, and then she returned fire. A quick glance down found Menagerie and Priest following her as quickly as possible on a four-winged griffin-like creature. She had only seen the beast once before, when she and Priest returned to the black mages' base on the winter solstice and a newly awakened Menagerie had shown them just what she had given birth to, but Jen was amazed that in just the last two months, the bird had grown from the size of a newborn puppy to the point that two adults could comfortably sit on its back. Reliant on physical wings as it was, though, it was slower than the Turk and she were, which meant that if she kept pursuing the white wizard, she would do so alone.

 _Then again_ , she decided as she tore after her foe,  _his repertoire is limited in flight where mine is not, and it looks like I'm more maneuverable than he is. Up here in the sky, the advantage is_ _ **mine**_.

The Turk was quick to figure this out, too, but his attempt to descend was cut off by a trio of Killing Curses. She smiled nastily. After the last five months, she had earned the right to play with her food just the tiniest bit. There was a practical purpose to her actions, too; if he were trying to land, it probably meant that he could not teleport away in midair the way she could. So long as she kept him aloft, his escape routes were limited.

As her curses filled the air, her grin widened. He kept dodging her spells, but there was only so long he could avoid her. So long as she stayed on his tail, he would not have a moment's rest, and then all she would need was for him to make a single, fatal mistake—

Shouted incantations came from behind her, and she glanced back to see just what complication they were going to have to deal with  _now_. What she found made her curse sulfurously. Wizards and witches on brooms circled the other black mages. Worse, these wizards and witches all wore the scarlet cloaks of the Auror Corps! So far, it did not look like there had been any fatalities on either side, but knowing what kind of people Menagerie and Priest were, she had little hope that state of affairs would persist. One of them, likely Menagerie, would lash out, and then a bloodbath would result. No matter who won, it would make the near future more difficult than it had any need to be.

"Halt!"

Jen groaned. Of course. Because this was not bad enough already!

Another broom raced towards them, the rider's pink hair fluttering in the wind. "I told you to stop!" Dora commanded. Her wand was already out, and she was catching up far faster than Jen wanted. Jen was now doubly glad that she had masked her face with the Unspeakables' disguising charm; not only did it keep the Turk from finding her, she really, truly did not want to have to explain any of this to her cousin.

The Turk glanced back and forth between the two witches, a cruel smile on his face. How did he—? No, he had not realized their connection, she decided after a moment's frantic thought. He was probably just waiting to see what she would do, knowing that no matter if she attacked the Auror or kept chasing after him, it would hamper her in some way. Of the four avatars on the battlefield, she was the only one who had to stay in this country when the fight was over.

"You're both under arrest! Stop, or I  _will_  curse you!"

What was she going to do? She could not just ignore Dora's presence; the other witch did not know she was there, and that meant that Dora would continue pursuing her until she teleported away. Worse, because Dora did not know, she would not hesitate to stop her by force. After watching Dora fight Voldemort the previous year, she knew it would be a hard fight against her cousin, worse if she held back. Handicapping herself would ensure Dora's victory, which meant…

She swallowed. She had no choice. She had to kill Dora if she wanted to catch the Turk.

Her emotions rebelled at that option. She forced herself to look at it calmly, with a cold, ruthless eye. She had long ago decided that if she were ever forced to choose between her goals and her adopted family, she would choose the former. It was how she had always made her way in the world; like she told Lily Potter, she would drown someone without hesitation if that were the only way for her to keep her own head above water. This time, it was just Dora she had to shove under.

 _No_.

" _Incarcerous_!"

A flick of her wrist destroyed the net that flew after her. This fight would not be the end of matters, even if she and her allies did escape. The Aurors would continue to chase down any leads about the wandless, flying witch, and eventually Dora would remember that she had demonstrated those abilities. Well, maybe not flight; that was a skill she did not remember ever showing her family. But wandless magic was rare, and the degree of skill with it that she had was, in Flitwick's opinion, unique. Dora  _would_ connect Queen's mastery with Jen's sooner or later. Once that happened, she had no idea of exactly what Dora would do with that information. She would put money down that Dora would confront her about it, though, and that made it even more important for Dora to fall here and now.

_No. I can't. I won't._

" _Reducto_!  _Accio_  clothes!"

Resisting the pull on her outfit and dodging both the Reductor Curse and the Turk's blade of wind, Jen scowled. She did not know what she found so difficult about this course of action. It was simple! Reasonable! Why did some buried part of her resist so much?! She was not the first black witch who had to kill a member of her family. Elsie had crafted her Death Focus from her own father's skull. Priest, though he had not actually killed his family as far as she knew, had done something that was arguably worse and erased all their memories of him. Menagerie was estranged from her family for some reason still unknown to her. Voldemort, she was sure, had probably killed his parents, along with anyone else who knew his birth name and was not one of his followers. Four black mages, and none of them gave ties of blood or love any thought. She was a black witch, too; this was something she simply had to do. It was part of being a Power's avatar: cutting herself off from her former life. So why did her magic refuse to move?!

_Because she isn't their cousin. She's_ _**my** _ _cousin._

_I can't kill Dora_.

Dora did not seem to think much of her confused revelation, the spells coming from her wand turning more aggressive as Jen and the Turk both dodged. Glancing at Jen one more time, the white wizard flung another of his sharp-edged crescents, but not at her. Dora jerked her broom to get out of the way of the attack, but her reflexes or her broom was just too slow. The Auror barely got her hands out of the way before the wind blade sheared through the broomstick, ruining the enchantments laid upon the object.

Dora fell.

What now? Hit the Turk while he was distracted or—

Jen could not even finish the thought before she was moving. Spinning her body to face the ground, she raced after Dora, her right hand outstretched. The distance narrowed. "Grab on!"

Her cousin did not need to be told twice. Dora's own hand reached out for hers, and with a desperate grab she latched ahold of the Auror's wrist. She spun, Dora flopping about like a rag doll, but for all its inelegance, the maneuver worked to bleed off most of their momentum. Now she just needed to find somewhere she could drop Dora off, preferably somewhere that was easily defensible—

Hot magic slipped into her sonar's range and then out the other side, and again they were falling. Jen screamed from the sudden onslaught of mind-shattering pain, the sound drowning out the wind as they plummeted towards the ground. She couldn't act, couldn't think. They hit the rooftop below at full speed, and their grip on each other was broken when they bounced impossibly off the hard surface. Dora rolled out of her sonar range, and she, too, came to a halt. Still her thoughts were fuzzy. All she could do was watch the darkness encroaching on the edges of her vision and the thick streams of blood spurting with each heartbeat from the stumps on her left side.

Dora staggered over and waved her wand in a meaningless manner, but whatever she was trying worked. The arterial spray stopped. Jen's head rolled just enough to satisfy her morbid curiosity. No elbow. No knee. She had lost most of her arm and leg. A faint huff was all that came out when she laughed through the agony. It would not be hard for the Turk to find her now! Just look for the crippled girl!

The older witch cast a few more spells at her, but nothing offensive. Some of them felt similar to spells Pomfrey had cast on her during her checkups in fourth year, and the rest she assumed were in the same vein. Jen blinked slowly, the world seeming to skip with every closing of her eyes. Blood loss, she knew intellectually, but right now she was too tired to care as much as she knew she should.

The next thing that really got her attention was Dora's shout of surprise and pain. Opening her eyes, she saw that the one attacking her cousin was not the Turk but instead was Priest. That was… better. Not good, but better. "Don't," she said, her voice barely audible. Her ally did not hear her. Taking as deep a breath as she could, she repeated the command with more force.

This time, Priest heard and listened. He cast again, but this spell only paralyzed the Auror, not hurt her. He walked closer and crouched next to her. "Are you growing soft on us, Queen? She and her fellows are a threat. They need to be eliminated if we are to proceed unhindered."

There went any goodwill her other persona might have earned with Dora and the DMLE. And Priest was still watching her; waiting for an explanation, maybe? "I still have to live here when we're done," she whispered. "Leave law enforcement alone. The Turk's gone. We need to go, too." Twisting just a tiny amount made her gasp at the pain lancing into her torso from her severed limbs. "And, if you can fix me like you did you—"

"I already planned to offer my services in that respect." Barely a huff escaped the African wizard as he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder as though she were a bag of grain. He looked up for a brief second, possibly to judge where the other Aurors were. That pause and her position let Jen examine Dora. Her cousin glared at them furiously, but she did not appear to be truly injured.

The tightness in Jen's chest eased a little.

The world collapsed into a hair-like thread, and they were back in the black mages' base. She tumbled off of Priest's shoulder and landed on a long cushion, like one taken from an outdoor chaise. Menagerie wandered over, her griffin-like monstrosity only a few steps behind. "You look like shit, Queen."

She was too tired to retort, and it hurt too much to make any rude gestures. The Greek witch would have to settle for a bleary glare.

"You did not look much better the first time you lost an arm." Stepping into view, he lowered a vial to her lips. "Can you swallow?"

"Potions don't work on me," she managed to sigh.

A scowl twisted his features. "They do not work at all? Without this potion, you will be unable to integrate the replacement with your body."

"At all. Try it anyway."

He shrugged and rummaged in his pockets for a moment. She hoped she could manage without the potion, but she really did not know if she could. Her family had long possessed an innate talent for self-transformation; it was why Dora was a metamorphmagus, and why Sirius and James Potter had both been able to master an extremely tricky bit of transfiguration before they sat their OWLs. Transfigurations were not permanent, but that inherited talent might be enough for her to merge whatever material Priest was going to use to regrow her arm and leg with her original flesh. If it were not….

A length of red string stretched between his hands, and he pressed a finger into her skin just a couple of centimeters from the ragged edge of her arm. Ignoring her scream of protest, he ran the string to the same point on her other arm, then from that second point to the tip of her middle finger. He gave her remaining arm a satisfied nod and walked out of her field of vision. What she heard told her what he had done, though: the long moan of a scream muffled by a gag, and then the meaty thump of flesh hitting concrete. Seconds later he returned, the hairy and muscular arm of a man in his hand. He slashed his wand through the air, and she shrieked when the end of her stump was shredded apart and blood once more spurted onto the ground.

Sticking the end of the stolen arm against her wound, he gave it a single hard rap. The tanned flesh turned white and soft, like bread dough that was waiting for the oven's heat.

The gooey mess still felt alien to her, not a part of her body. She could not reach out to it like she could the magic of her own body. Taking a chance – because if there were ever a time to use a stupid idea, this would be it – she slid her intact arm closer to her body and flicked a finger to slice through her jacket, shirt, and skin. The blood running from the cut flowed easily onto her fingertips, and she traced a single rune. Maybe, just maybe, that would be enough.

The crimson symbol flew over and onto the dough and sank into it. The end attached to the ruin of her injury constricted, feeling like it was almost flowing into her body. The change creeped down the gelatinous arm, and in its wake the shrunken material took on the color, shape, and feeling of her original limb. When the process was complete, she told her fingers to give a little wiggle, and they obeyed without hesitation. It was as if she had never been hurt at—

Cold stabbed into her wrist, and she reflexively yanked her arm to her chest. It did no good whatsoever, but thankfully the pain vanished as suddenly as it had come only a few moments later. Priest pulled her arm away to examine it. "How," he asked, pressing a finger against the linear design carved into her wrist, "did you manage to scar your very soul?"

She gave the scar a lingering look, her attention specifically on the flowery designs on either end of the line. "It's a memento," she told him finally. "Something my patron gave me last year."

"Ah. Well, if it is the Gatekeeper's doing, that would be why it returned. You know you will never be able to get rid of this mark, yes?"

"I figured as much." Her voice was a little stronger now, she realized, and she took and released a deep breath. Her breathing was smoother, and she did not feel quite as tired as she had. Her little experiment with blood magic must have transformed the excess mass of the arm into the blood she lacked. "I feel better already."

Menagerie nodded with a small grin. "Just imagine how good you'll feel when your leg's back."

Now that she was more aware of what was going on, Jen cast a spell on her left hip and leg to immobilize it; there was no reason to chance knocking the end against something and dealing with the agony all over again. Another wave of her hand cursed the nasty hair that was growing out of her new arm into oblivion.

Priest chuckled faintly at the display of vanity before moving to her leg to perform the same measurements there that he had done on her arm. Her gaze followed him when he walked away, and what she found shocked her. Three people sat naked on the floor with their backs pressed against steel pillars. Two of them had their hands tied behind them on the opposite side of the pillars, but the third, a bear of a man, was missing both arms, and the lone stump visible to her was charred, almost as if someone had cauterized it with a blowtorch. They were all gagged, but none of them struggled with their bonds. They looked as though they had been drugged into a stupor.

"A stable is one of the first things we put together whenever we set up a new base," Menagerie explained. "Since Priest is all but impossible to kill and he likes to fight with a sword, he loses body parts a lot. That potion lets him turn one of their limbs into his own. It's the only way he can be as reckless as he wants."

Jen was barely listening to her. Watching Priest measure off the length of her missing leg on the man whose arm she had presumably taken already, she felt her chest be flooded with an awkward, unusual emotion. An emotion whose presence alone shocked her.

Complete, unmitigated disgust.

* * *

"Hey, Jen. Are you all right? You've been… quiet, the last few days."

"I'm fine."

That was a lie. Jen was anything but fine. For years, she had known what she was. She was a black witch, a servant of Death. She wielded powers beyond anything ordinary wizards could even try to use, fueled by the sacrifice of human lives. She was also one of the Baron's champions in the war against the Light, and she knew that were she called into service, she would fight white wizards by any means necessary, just as Priest and Menagerie did.

But there was the problem. Priest, Menagerie; they were the kind of people she was, but the sight of their 'stable' had shaken her. She had no qualms about sacrificing innocents, but while she would kill without hesitation, the thought of holding them for prolonged periods of time with no definite plans did not sit well with her, especially since she knew the other black mages would not just release their captives once the job was done. Those three would die, and that, more than anything, was what she had a problem with. It was like when Menagerie had wiped out the Buckley family. Once they knew that the Turk had never been to the compound, any benefit of killing the Buckleys vanished, and each body that fell after that was another pointless death. It was one thing to kill because she needed that death to fuel a ritual or because that person was a threat to her in some way. Then, murder was justified. It was quite another to kill thoughtlessly as her nominal allies had and would undoubtedly continue to do.

Her mind wandered back to Christmas Eve and her admission to Luna. Every time she killed someone, she had a definite purpose in mind. It was not something she did on a whim. There was a  _weight_  to her actions, something that was sorely lacking in her allies' own behavior.

Hence her dilemma. What Priest and Menagerie did disgusted her on a deep and visceral as well as intellectual level. They were a kind of people she refused to be, sinking to lows even she thought were unconscionable. At the same time, the path they had walked was the same one she was on, just miles and miles ahead of her. Elsie would have liked them, she knew. Her mentor was a woman possessed of a cruel pragmatism, and she would have supported them in the use of their stable. Voldemort, too, killed and tortured for no real reason whatsoever. That was all four of the black mages she knew, and if they all would have done the same thing, it was a good assumption that this was something the majority of black mages would be open to. If that were the case, the problem lay not in them, but in  _her_. There was something wrong with her, something that lay in conflict with her identity as a black witch.

It was likely the same failing that left her unable to kill Dora, that kept her from erasing Luna's memory of the Diadem and everything she learned when wearing it.

"No, you aren't," Morag retorted. "This entire week, you've been even weirder than normal. It's the truth!" she said when Padma and Tracey flicked unamused glares at her. "I know Valentine's Day is going to make you more of a pain to deal with, but you and Luna have been broken up since January. At least try to start moving past it."

Padma groaned and covered her face with her hands. "Tact, Morag. Look it up. Use it."

An unfamiliar owl fluttered down to the table and held out its leg. "I'll keep that in mind when you break up with someone," she bit out. "Of course, that would require you to date someone, first, and that would be a miracle in and of itself." She ripped the envelope open and was engulfed in a cloud of white powder. A cough ripped through her, and then another. "Real funny. Did"—several more coughs cut her off—"did one of you plan this?"

Her friends stared back at her dumbfounded. "We didn't have anything to do with this," the Scot finally answered.

The coughs were coming harder now, and they left her feeling winded. "If you didn't—" She bent over from the force of her own hacking, but the coughs were not stopping. They were getting worse, and what small breaths she could take in were accompanied by pain in her chest. She was starting to feel a little lightheaded, too.

Her hand shook when she raised it to her chest so she could heal herself. This was starting to feel less like a prank. Her magic answered for a moment, reducing the tension in her breast, but then the spell sputtered, for lack of a better word. It was like something was choking off her magic as well as her breathing.

A breath went out, and another did not come in no matter how hard she told her lungs to inhale. Jen's eyes widened in terrified realization. Magic was carried by nerves, so if both her magic and her diaphragm were being affected, there was only one explanation: something was attacking her nerves. That powder was a neurotoxin!

The world tipped over, and she fell backwards onto the stone floor. Her hands scrabbled at her throat.

Her graceless flop caught the rest of the school's attention.

She stared at the staff table even as everything started turning dim.

She needed help!

Someone shouted her name.

Everything went black.

* * *

The hospital wing was a severe, cheerless place. It had been that way when Sirius attended Hogwarts and he and the other Marauders had to visit Madam Pomfrey to undo the signs of whatever prank went wrong, and it was still that way now. He had actually asked her once in his seventh year why she made the infirmary so uninviting, and her response had caught him off guard. She  _wanted_  to keep visitors to a minimum, as that would make her patients want to get out even more and encourage their magic to speed up their healing. It was a creative idea, he had to admit, and it might even work.

That still did not make it any easier to sit here at his goddaughter's bedside waiting for her to wake up.

Dressed in a white nightgown and lying beneath sheets of the same color, Jen looked so much younger than her sixteen years. Or perhaps it was just that when she was awake, it was harder to tell that she was only sixteen and not the disillusioned woman in a girl's skin her life before he found her had turned her into. The pallor of her face was too similar to the bedsheets for his state of mind, her black hair and the iridescent blue of the Bubblehead Charm that covered her nose and mouth providing the only color.

"Has she woken yet?"

He shook his head, and Narcissa laid a hand on his shoulder before sitting in the chair immediately next to his. They had come to Hogwarts immediately following Marchbanks's Floo call during breakfast, and the sun was already beginning to dip below the horizon. Jen had not stirred at all during that time, not when Snape drew blood from her arm nor the three different times Pomfrey massaged a cream over her face and neck.

"Pomfrey said she'll probably wake up shortly," his cousin said in a forcibly bright tone of voice. "We knew she was going to be unconscious for most of the day after she… almost…."

"Yeah."

The door to the infirmary opened with a quiet creak, and the two Blacks glanced over their shoulders to find Marchbanks, Pomfrey, and Snape walking in. "Has she…?" the elderly headmistress began.

"No."

"I see. I wanted to let you know that we have altered the wards as a result of this attack. From now on, any trapped letters like this will trip the ill-intent ward and be redirected to an empty room away from the occupied portions of the castle where they can be safely destroyed. I am very sorry that these protections were not already in place."

"At least you made changes," Narcissa said in a low, dangerous voice. Her ire did not seem directed at any of the three, however, and the reason why was revealed when she continued, "Were Dumbledore still in charge, he probably would have waved it off as a learning experience or tried to punish her for being attacked. It wouldn't be the first time he'd have done it."

"Do you know who was responsible?" Sirius asked before Narcissa could continue her rant.

Marchbanks shook her head. "Right now, we don't. The letter bore no signature, nor was there a seal stamped in the wax. All it said was that since she continued to ignore him and reject his advances –  _'stomp on his proffered heart'_ , I believe was the exact phrasing – they would have to be together in death where they could not in life."

"That's…." He really did not know the right word to describe his reaction to that.

"Incredibly disturbing? Yes, I agree."

"I just hope he went through with his side of the whole affair." He turned to look at Narcissa in confusion, and she looked back with cold eyes and a hard voice. "If he wanted to die together with her, I hope he took his own poison and died without hearing if she survived. If he didn't, then he had better hope I'm not the one who finds him."

Snape cleared his throat. "We do have some evidence that might lead to an identification. The poison he used possessed no magic whatsoever. I do not know precisely what it was, but it was definitely of Muggle origin."

"We aren't looking at the Death Eaters, then," Sirius sighed. "And this probably wasn't one of Bellatrix's victims, either, not with that letter. Unless he's trying to throw us off by making it sound like he's crazy." That would actually make a great deal of sense if it were true. To be able to blend in with the Muggles enough to get a highly deadly poison like this, it would almost have to be someone raised in that world, and a Muggleborn would be far more likely to want revenge on Bellatrix through Jen than a Pureblood. That was not to say that there weren't Purebloods whose relatives Bellatrix murdered during the first war, as the Longbottoms could attest, just that there were far more Muggleborns in that category.

A soft sigh broke the silence, the sound strangely resonant, and they all turned to stare at the bed. Jen looked back at them with half-lidded eyes, her gaze interrupted by long, tired blinks. "You're awake!" he sighed gratefully.

"Whuuuuu?"

Pomfrey bustled to the opposite side of the bed and shined a  _Lumos_  charm into both Jen's eyes. "How are you feeling?"

Jen gave her a bleary, blankly irritated glare before groaning, "Shiiiiiii."

The nurse narrowed her eyes at the obvious profanity for just a moment before letting out a resigned sigh. "Fair enough. You'll stay here at least through Monday, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. Whatever that was, it did a number on your body and your magic."

"Whooo?"

"If you're asking who it was who attacked you, we do not know. We've alerted the DMLE, and they will be investigating. If you're asking who saved you, it was Professor Snape. I won't lie; it was pretty touch-and-go for most of the day. We were afraid we were going to lose you."

Jen's eyes fluttered closed while she sighed quietly. Opening them again, she slowly looked around as though to find the sour Potions Master.

…Who was already walking out the door.

Reaching down to pat her on the arm, he walked quickly into the hall. "Snape!"

"What?" the man said, turning around to give him a dismissive sneer.

Sirius felt a frown forming on his face, but before he could say anything, he noticed something strange. Snape looked tired, as though he had been under a great deal of stress, too. He looked almost like how Sirius felt. He did not like Snape, never had, and the feeling was mutual. Still, thinking back to the last time Jen had lain in the hospital wing, he recalled that she had a better relationship with the man than he did. Might Snape, too, have some small spark of fondness for her? "Thank you." His words shocked the dismissive expression off Snape's face. "Truly, thank you. We are in your debt. If there ever comes a time when you need—"

"I want nothing from you," Snape spat. A moment of silence passed, and the other wizard visibly pulled his composure back together. "I didn't do this for  _you_. I did it for her."

"I know. That's why I'm grateful."

His schoolyard rival did not seem to know how to respond to that, and after another few seconds, Snape gave him a curt nod and turned on his heel. Sirius reentered the infirmary and sat again in his chair, one hand curling around Jen's as though to make sure she was really there, really awake and alive. "Don't scare me like that again," he whispered.

"Sor… ry."

Pomfrey fidgeted for a moment, a show of hesitation he had never seen from her before. "I'm going to put her to sleep soon. Witches and wizards heal better if their magic is unoccupied with anything else."

"We will be allowed back tomorrow?" Narcissa asked, though her tone made it clear this was not a request so much as a demand.

"You will."

"Go… home," Jen rasped. The corners of her mouth twitched weakly. "Stink."

"I stink, do I? I'll have to keep that in mind the next time you need me for something. Clearly I won't be able to help you until I've spent hours bathing in perfume." Her eyes glittered with the smile she was too weak to show. "We'll be back tomorrow. Probably Andi, too." He bent over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You'll get better soon, Jen. Don't worry about this. Let us take care of everything else."

She gave him a tiny nod before her eyes drifted closed, no spell necessary to send her off to dream land.

He followed Narcissa to Pomfrey's office, where the hospital wing's Floo was tucked away, and only now did he let himself feel the anger that had been kept caged by his fear. "That bastard is going to pay."

"I'm sure he will."

"He better." Sirius turned to Narcissa. "I don't know how serious you were about looking for him yourself. Hopefully it was a joke. But if it wasn't, if you're really thinking about going after him…." He took a deep breath that did little to calm him down. "Then I want you to tell me before you do anything. I have a few things I want to do to him, too."

Narcissa looked at him with an expression of surprise, almost as if she had never seen him before. "When you first took the lordship, I was afraid that you would run our family into the ground," she confessed. "Or, barring that, that you would try to change it into something unrecognizable. You were never like us, even as a child. You were too obsessed with Muggle contraptions and getting into trouble and making a fool of yourself. Even with Jen being more like Great-Uncle Arcturus than like you, a few decades with you as the Head could have done incalculable damage to our standing in society."

"…I'm sorry?"

"Don't be," she said before giving him a dark smile. "I was wrong in every way. I'm sorry that I didn't believe in you, Sirius. For all that you act like a Muggle-loving clown, you are clearly still a Black where it matters."

* * *

**Alternate title: Wherein two different wizards almost manage to kill Jen. She's not having a good week, is she? I actually considered ending the chapter after the second scene, but since I don't know what my update schedule is going to look like, that cliffhanger would be too evil even for me.**

**This chapter has been planned for a** _**long** _ **time, since shortly after I started Black Princess Ascendant, in fact. It's also the reason I kind of hammered Jen's previous assumptions about what she would do if she were forced to choose between herself and her family into your heads lately. This is a huge change for her in terms of her characterization; it's where she finally has to decide what kind of person she's going to become. Thankfully for her, her future is not quite so binary as she thinks it is right now.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	23. In Love with Your Carnage

**I'm glad so many of you liked the twist last chapter about Jen and Dora. I was worried how that was going to go over. And if you're concerned this means Jen is now going to turn around and become this sweet, selfless, Harry-like character… well, this chapter is for you!**

* * *

**Chapter 23  
** **In Love with Your Carnage**

A curious  _clack-clack_ -ing noise came from the other side of the door, and Andi peered at the sheet of wood in confusion. She knew what that sound was, of course; how could she not when Ted loved playing billiards as much as he did? No, what was so strange was the fact that no one should be here at this time of day. Ted, the most likely suspect, she had seen Floo to work. Sirius was off at the Ministry, fulfilling his obligations as a part-time combat instructor for the Auror and Hit Wizard cadets, and with nothing of immediate import pending in the Wizengamot, Cissy had taken the morning to visit with some friends of hers and then planned to spend the afternoon being pampered. Dora had made some vague comments about needing to look up some things for work, a habit she had whenever she wanted to talk about a case that she was forbidden from talking about. With it being a Thursday, Jen was at Hogwarts. And she was on the wrong side of the door for it to be her.

Well, she supposed it could be Kreacher, but why a house-elf would want to play billiards she hadn't a clue.

Shrugging her shoulders, she pushed open the door. It was not as if she were in any danger; with the wards as tight as they were, it could only be one of them, and the only member of the family she had any reason to fear was explicitly barred from entering the house. Her lips pursed. "Aren't you supposed to be at school?"

A shake of her head was all the answer Andi received. Jen looked down the length of the cue and took another shot. Only once the balls had stopped ricocheting did the girl speak. "I don't have class this morning."

Oh, it physical hurt to listen to her adopted niece's rasp! Jen had always had a nice voice, and though she did not often sing, they had on very rare occasions walked in on her when she had the wireless playing and was too preoccupied with whatever else she was doing to realize they could hear her singing along. The attack by her mysterious stalker had changed all that. For the first few days, Jen had only been able to croak a word or two at a time, and Madam Pomfrey had been legitimately worried that that was all she would ever be able to do, that the poison had mangled the nerves in her throat beyond all hopes of repair. Then she had begun becoming more fluid in her speech, saying more words at a time before she had to stop to let her voice recover. The school nurse could only guess that, being a Black, Jen had enough metamorph in her that she was subconsciously reversing the damage done. It was not a guarantee of a full recovery, but it was certainly a promising sign.

Or Jen's voice was returning because its owner had some way of healing nerve damage that no one knew about and was just taking it slow so no one found out about it. It was harder to believe than the metamorph theory, but it did fit better with the expression of resigned disgust that sometimes flitted over her face when she had to talk.

"So you decided to come here and shoot pool?"

"It was something to do." Another shot, and this time the cue ball glanced off the one she had presumably aimed at. Of all the Blacks, Cissy was probably the only one who was worse at the game. "And it was quiet. Needed time to think."

"Think about what?" Now her curiosity was piqued. Jen's words had been quiet, preoccupied, as if she were already only halfway focusing on the conversation and instead had returned to her previous concerns. "It wasn't about your stalker, was it? You know you should just leave that to us—"

"And I plan to. Aunt Cissy might make him suffer more than I would."

"So if it wasn't him," she wondered aloud, "what were you thinking about?"

A ball thumped heavily into the side pocket. Jen did not straighten from her shooting position, instead staying bent at the waist and looking at the hole as if wondering if she could jump into it and hide. Finally, though, she stood, still pointedly not looking at the older witch. "What if…." She trailed off, and more than a minute passed in silence before she spoke again. "What would you have done if sixteen-year-old-you had seen the kind of person you were becoming and decided you didn't want to be her, after all?"

"Are you talking about Bella's… instability?" The girl said nothing, which was as good as a confirmation. It was also clearly something she needed to talk about but did not want to talk about, which was probably the reason she was behaving so skittishly about the topic. "I never told you how Ted and I got together, did I?"

Jen shook her head.

Andi walked around the table to stand next to her niece. "But you must have wondered why my beliefs are so different from Cissy's, and especially Bella's."

"You once said that Walburga encouraged Bellatrix's more violent tendencies, if I remember right."

"You do. That is not to say that my parents disagreed with her opinions themselves, just how she chose to express them. They viewed Muggles much the way Cissy does, as soulless things so far below them as not to be of interest rather than as threats to be destroyed by any means necessary, and Muggleborns as people, but only barely worthy of the name. I…" She grimaced. "…thought much the same, once upon a time. How could I not, raised as I was? I did not have a rebellious older cousin to emulate the way Sirius did, even if he originally regarded me so highly because I was the 'fun cousin' and he was already turning into an incorrigible mischief-maker. And  _that_  I had nothing to do with, I'll have you know.

"But Sirius's behavior is not the point. I was sorted into Slytherin, just as Bellatrix was two years beforehand and as Narcissa would be two years later. I was a Pureblood, a Black, and I found myself right at home in the Snake Pit. I did not share the violent view some of my fellows did, but that did not mean I condemned them on moral grounds. Actually, as the years progressed, I found the one person who could have pushed me into agreeing with them that Muggleborns were a plague that needed to be wiped out."

"I know where this is going," Jen said with a scratchy chuckle. "Theodore Tonks, right?"

"Ha! No." Jen looked at her in confusion. "If Ted had behaved that way, I would have transfigured him into a mouse and sold him as a pet before I ever considered going on a date with him. No, it was a different Muggleborn, one named Andrew Shelton. In the late sixties, You-Know-Who was around, people knew about him, and he was gathering support. The war hadn't truly started, but there were already rumors of attacks on Muggles, and, of course, there had been strong anti-Muggleborn sentiment for many, many decades. Shelton was a supporter of a group that called themselves New Wizardkind, who encouraged Muggleborns to stand up for themselves against the discrimination they faced. An admirable purpose, to be sure, except for the fact that rather than limiting themselves to fighting back against blood purists, they vented their anger on Purebloods in general, even those who had done nothing to them and didn't care one way or another. In many ways, they were exactly the same as the forming Death Eaters. The only Purebloods safe from their attentions were those who loudly proclaimed their support for Muggles and Muggle life.

"Ted was not a member of New Wizardkind himself, but he was friends with Shelton, and it meant that he was often nearby whenever a fight broke out. I, being a Black, was one of their targets, and I also knew enough curses to make them regret coming after me. Several other Purebloods, purists and innocent victims both, jumped in on my side, and Ted felt honor-bound to help his friend when the numbers changed to favor us. That was when the staff finally got involved, and everyone got detentions. Since the numbers were almost even, Dumbledore had the bright idea of pairing up Purebloods and Muggleborns. Ted and I were put together scrubbing cauldrons.

"It did not go well. We soon started yelling, and ironically, we eventually wound up hurling the same accusations at each other. Neither of us had taken part in our side's respective bullying, but neither had we spoken up against it. We just stood by and let it happen.

"In another world, that might have been the end of it," she said thoughtfully, "but the Sorting Hat had considered me for Ravenclaw before putting me with the Snakes, and Ted was a Raven. We both wondered what it meant that our groups could behave so similarly when they were diametrically opposed. We started having small, hurried conversations in the library, taking great care not to be seen consorting with the 'enemy', and both of us slowly began to see the issues with new eyes. He saw that the strange customs that Muggleborns view as backwards have reasons for why they are the way they are. They might not be good reasons or reasons he agrees with, but the same can be said about the oddities of Muggle culture. I, meanwhile, saw that there were no inherent differences between Muggleborns and Purebloods, only the societies in which we were raised. Our meetings became amicable as time went by, and in the course of that, we became friends. Prejudice, after all, can only stand so long as you see the other side as strange and scary. Take that away, and you discover that there are always far more similarities than there are differences.

"Inevitably, our friendship came to light, and both of us were cast away by our previous friends. It was not the end of the world, though, and we found other Purebloods and Muggleborns and Halfbloods who disdained the militant stance of both sides." Andi shrugged. "We started dating at the end of our sixth year, and married not quite two years after our graduation. And the rest is history."

That was not to say it ended well for everyone, though, she thought to herself. When the Death Eaters truly did start openly attacking Muggles and Muggleborns, New Wizardkind had struck back, seeing this as proof of their own prejudices. Shelton, along with the rest of the group, had been murdered when You-Know-Who personally attacked one of their rallies.

"That's a nice story," Jen said, her lost expression making it clear how little she thought it applied to her question.

"It is now, but it wasn't then. I had a choice to make once I realized how much nonsense blood purity was. I could take the easy road: forget all that I had learned, stick to how I had been raised, and become a witch just like my mother."  _Now_  her niece understood where she was going with this. "Or, I could do what I knew was right, regardless of how much it hurt at the time."

Turning to look at her, Jen softly whispered, "I don't think our situations are quite the same. You had a choice in the matter. Changing your opinions and your actions didn't require changing who you were."

"No, it didn't. But I can't give you any better advice unless I know what has made you so worried."

Silence blanketed them for a time, Jen visibly wrestling with what to say.

"Hypothetically," began Jen, "let's say I'm going to a Muggle dance club, minding my own business, when someone dressed like a Death Eater throws a curse at me. I don't take too kindly to it, so I run after him, fully intent on making him pay for trying to kill me. A Muggle cop shows up and tries to stop me, not knowing what is going on. I don't want to hurt her, but I know that hurting her will best serve my interests. Not only do I have to deal with the Death Eater, there will be consequences should I let her go now that she knows my face."

"The simplest answer is that you shouldn't have chased after the Death Eater to begin with, you know. Leave him to the Aurors." Oh, Andi hoped this truly was an analogy for whatever really happened. Anything would be less dangerous than Jen chasing down a remorseless killer!

"No, it wasn't. Just letting him go so he can try again? That isn't the kind of person I am." The younger witch sighed. "And I like who am, even the bad parts. So I have a vicious streak. I'm fine with that. I don't let people get away with trying to hurt or kill me or mine, and I repay violence tenfold upon them. I'm fine with that, too. I do whatever's necessary to get what I want, no matter what other people might think about it. I'm  _fine_  with it. Except this time. Bellatrix would have done it without a moment's hesitation, I'm sure of it, but she's a monster, and I don't want to be like her. But what choice do I have when we're already so much alike? How can I avoid becoming her yet keep the traits we share that I like?"

Laying her arm over the girl's shoulder, she pulled her niece close. In all honesty, it could be much worse. She was halfway expecting a tale of cruelty and horror, hints that Bellatrix's madness was beginning to overtake Jen. Not that it would change anything. She and Cissy had discussed that possibility shortly after performing the blood adoption, when the enthusiasm began to wear off and the consequences came to mind, and they had agreed that it would be their responsibility to fix whatever problems arose. They were the ones who made her potential insanity possible, so it was they who had to be held accountable.

In that light, Jen only being a vicious, violent ball of angst was infinitely preferable.

"Nature isn't the only thing that determines who you become," she answered. "Your choices matter, too. Bella has problems, I won't deny that, but she also made choices that led to her becoming who she is. If you don't want to become like her, you don't have to. Make different choices. Honestly, you already have. She had a talent for dark magic, and she wanted to apply her talents to killing Muggleborns. You plan to use them as an Unspeakable, to study the world rather than to destroy. If you do that, you can't follow in Bella's footsteps."

Jen tilted her head. "Be a supporter rather than a killer," she muttered, understanding audible in her voice. "That… should be possible.  _Elsie toujou voye je l' sou yo, men lè sa a ankò, gade sa ki te pase l' nan fen an. Li ta ka oke ak sa_."

"I have no clue what you just said."

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it." Turning in Andi's arms, Jen gave her a hug and a smile. "Thank you, Auntie. That really is good advice."

"You're welcome?" Why did she get the feeling she was missing something important?

* * *

"And… there." Scribbling one last number, Jen pulled away from the chalkboard in her locked – and for this research, warded – pseudo-laboratory. The expression sprawled out across multiple boards, trails of characters and variables splitting off and twisting back on themselves in a way that hinted at three-dimensionality. Yes, it was a sloppy trick, nothing at all like the pristinely organized formulae found in arithmancy books, and she had intentionally left intact terms that should cancel out in the final product, but she would worry about cleaning it all up once she was sure the thing actually worked. Until then, if she needed to twist everything around so the formula would emulate the structure of the spell, so be it. It was not as if anyone else had ever succeeded in this, after all!

It was high time she dusted off this semi-abandoned experiment. She had wanted to describe and modify the Patronus Charm for a year and a half now, but the spell was so complicated that she had never gotten anywhere with it. Worse, each time she tried to cast it, she had to force her blackened magic to become light, which…. Well, the pain was yet another reason she had finally given up. She had put the problem out of her mind for many months to focus on the hunt for the Turk and her classes, and it was not until a few days previously that she flipped through some of her old notes and found a hastily written idea: convince someone to cast the Patronus in front of her so she could examine the structure.

The Buckleys had been even nicer than that. Not only had they shown her the spell, they had also forced her to create a counter to it on the fly. A counter spell that targeted the neutral aspect of the spell, specifically, the one part she could feel and work with. Rather than cut out the pieces she couldn't use, she had all the information about the core she needed to cast the blasted thing and have it remain stable. Without the light magic portions, she was a step closer to making a spell she and other black mages could cast, one far more destructive than the original.

First, though, she had to test it and make sure she got it right.

She moved slowly, deliberately twisting her powers into the spiraling cage that made up the backbone of both the spell and the totemic creature it created. Steel-grey smoke flowed from her hands, and barely had she finished weaving the end before the spell distorted. Four tendrils punched out and turned into smoky legs, and the far end blunted before sprouting a head. The tail that slipped through her outstretched hand felt like a gentle breeze.

Looking at the form of her Patronus, she could not hold back her smile. Oh, that was appropriate. She had always heard that Patroni represented their casters' characters, but she had not realized hers would be so magnificent, nor that it would speak so strongly to her. Kneeling on the stone floor, she wrapped her arms around its neck and nuzzled its smoky form, a gentle pressure keeping her from falling through it.

"You are going to be so deadly when I finish you," she whispered, giving the beast one final squeeze before letting the spell dissipate. That was the hardest part, recreating the shape. Now it got easier, and a lot more fun.

Snatching the piece of chalk off the copy of the  _Daily Prophet_  she had brought with her, mostly so she could read more deeply into an article about Lucius Malfoy passing away from a protracted illness, she copied the equation for another spell she had long since defined, one of her specialties. She almost felt sorry for whatever Dementor found itself facing this curse when she was through.

Almost.

* * *

The clouds floating above Edinburgh were dark and angry, promising a downpour in the very near future. It was one reason Jen was walking through the shopping district with only Tracey by her side; given the choice between being stuck walking through the rain or being warm and dry in the castle, she would choose the latter nine times out of ten. That meant her large group of friends had split up to take care of their own errands, and she was the only one running low on parchment and ink.

The other reason was because she really wanted to spend some time alone with her best friend. Her everyday life was a tangle of lies and misdirections, and nobody, not even her friends or family, had enough pieces to put everything together and see the real picture. That said, Tracey had more pieces than most, and her darkest friend was one of the few whom she felt she could trust with some of her more disturbing secrets. Tracey and Sirius and Cissy.

"I'm not saying it's impossible," the other heiress said. "I just don't think it makes sense. Before, if this was Lucius? Sure. He was an evil creep, but he knew how to play politics. I could see him making overtures to the Neutral Houses. But Malfoy the younger? Not a chance. He's always been too upfront, too blunt, about how much he looks down on everybody who isn't Dark. And he still is; you could tell just listening to him that he's plotting something and thought we would make good patsies or something. It's why nobody took him up on his offer." Tracey shook her head. "I would just feel a lot better if I knew what he was planning."

"Knowing him, I doubt it's anything good. I doubt we need to worry about it, though. Odds are he'll soon squander whatever favors Lucius had saved up, and then House Malfoy will go the way of Kennewick or Mitchell. Still part of the Wizengamot, just a family that has negligible influence over the whole."

"Maybe." A nasty smile lit up Tracey's face. "Hey, isn't your aunt still technically a Malfoy? She might be able to petition for its absorption into House Black."

Jen shook her head. "No, she can't. Not anymore. Malfoy couldn't cast her out of the family, not when it would also remove him from his new position as Head because he is her son, but he could and did dissolve her marriage to Lucius. Said that by seeking asylum with us, she had abandoned her marital duties as laid out in the contract." Cissy had, understandably, been distraught when she found out about that. From what she said, losing all rights to her son had been her sole reason for not annulling her marriage after she escaped Voldemort's clutches almost two years ago, and now to learn that her caution was all for naught? That had almost crushed her.

"Damn. That sucks."

"Oh, Tracey. You have such a way with words sometimes."

Her friend blew off her mocking retort with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Pfft. You know what I mean. Always figured him to be an ungrateful little bastard. What I want to know is…." Eyes looking over Jen's suddenly widened. "Jen! Watch—"

The world turned black.

* * *

 _Ugh_. Blinking her eyes to clear out the gunk that filled them, Jen let her sonar spread out as far as it could. Since this was neither Hogwarts nor Grimmauld Place, that meant a paltry ten feet.  _Note to self: figure out how to expand my sonar no matter where I am_.

That was not to say her short range told her nothing. She knew she was tied to a chair, ropes binding her wrists and ankles to the wood. She knew she was positioned next to a set of mirrors on top of a tiny dais. And she knew she no longer wore the casual clothes she had chosen for Edinburgh but instead a billowing white dress that left her shoulders bare, along with a gauzy veil that was currently swept back away from her face.

Yeah, this guy, whoever he was, had signed his death warrant.

The sound of a shower cut off somewhere above her, and she watched the stairs with cruel anticipation. Soon enough, the stairs began to creak as someone descended. A pudgy man wearing an old-fashioned dress robe turned the corner, and his eyes lit up when he saw her glaring at her. "You're awake! Wonderful! I was getting worried. I didn't think you would sleep this long."

"Who the hell are you?"

The wizard's doughy face melted at her question. "Who… am I? My sweet Jennifer, why would you say something like that? It's me. Jacob."

"Jacob." The name, along with the man's face, finally triggered the relevant memory. The Solstice Ball they had hosted the year before. "Jacob Callahan?"

He smiled at her. She, on the other hand, was still fairly confused. She had had all of, what, one conversation with Lord Callahan? And that had not even been important, just an excuse to ignore the Potters when they showed up at Black Manor for the Ball. He had spent most of that time talking about his company…. "The poison. It was entirely nonmagical. That's how you got ahold of it, isn't it? Through your little import deals with the Muggles."

A sheepish shrug was his answer. "Work in a business like that long enough, and eventually you meet unsavory individuals. I was surprised you survived."

"And I hoped you had already offed yourself." She bared her teeth in a feral facsimile of a smile. "Looks like neither of us got what we wanted."

"Had you passed through the Veil, I would have joined you," he protested. "But I wanted to be sure that we went together. I wouldn't leave you here like that, alone without me."

It was official. This bloke was completely round the bend. "What did you do to Tracey?"

"Your friend?" She nodded, her expression hard. If this dead fool had hurt her best friend…. "She is safe, don't worry about that. I just stunned her and tucked her away in an alcove. She should already be awake. This journey we are on is just for us, darling."

Darling? Yuck. Still, there was one bright spot in all this: it was just the two of them. He had no support, no hostages with which to threaten her. "I suppose I have you to thank for dressing me like some blushing bride, then? How long did you spend just feeling me up?"

"I would never!" So trying to kill her was okay, but the idea of groping her disgusted him? "It's transfigured. I wouldn't dare do anything to defile your purity, my lovely Jennifer. You have to believe me."

"Defile my purity?" The snicker that escaped soon morphed into a long, loud cackle. "You're a decade too late for that, Callahan! I've shagged every man and woman I wanted since I was seven years old! There isn't a sex act you can think of that I don't have more experience in than you."

"That's a lie! An awful lie!" her stalker screamed, staggering towards her. "I know you, my Jennifer! You would never—!"

"Know me? Ha!" Flipping her hair behind her, she boasted, "Even this, the whole tied up and helpless routine? Been there, done that, bored already. The guys who wanted this were all just like you, Callahan: unimaginative creeps, but at least they paid me well for my time. Tell me, are we going straight to the forceful fucking, or did you want me to beg and plead for mercy a little first?"

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Callahan was close enough now, and he was so focused on her face that he could not see the ropes tying her to the chair vanish. She jumped to her feet, grabbed the nearest weapon, and swung with all her strength. The chair slammed into his head and knocked him to the ground. "By the way," she said, hitting him again when he tried to push himself to his knees, "you forgot to set up a safeword. Guess we'll just have to use my regular one."

"Jennifer, please—"

"EHHHHNN! Good guess, but wrong." The flimsy chair broke when she hit him around the shoulders a third time, so she tossed the pieces away in disgust and conjured a titanium club. Which she promptly swung at his face. "Too bad. I actually might have let you go if you got it right. It was Mordecai, in case you were wondering."

Callahan's wand was in his hand, and then it wasn't. Or, more accurately, the wand and the hand both exploded before he could try to point it at her. "Too slow, old man." A snap of her fingers flipped him over, and she raised the rod above her head, the end reforming into a sharp point. This felt deliciously similar to the time she murdered That Bastard; her atop her attacker, ready to stab him in the heart in righteous vengeance.

Wait. This… this was all wrong. This man had attacked her and her best friend, kidnapped her, tried to murder her, and she was going to kill him out of hand? Stab and die, just like that? No. No, no, no. That wouldn't do at all.

She had a better idea.

"It's your lucky day, dear Jacob. Maybe I do need a man like you around, after all." His face paled to a ghostly shade when he saw the evil glint in her eyes. "You're going to help me with a little  _project_."

* * *

 **Creole Corner:**  Elsie always looked down on them, but then again, look what happened to her in the end. He might be okay with that.

**I only showed Callahan on screen once, though I also mentioned him early on in this book; he was one of the wizards Sirius thought had sent a marriage proposal because it was expected of him but not because he was actually interested. If you didn't figure it out before now, that's fine. You honestly weren't supposed to know who he was, and I was careful not to foreshadow anything. Many stalkers are people their victims have met only a couple of times at most, and I wanted that to be equally true here.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	24. A Long Awaited Rematch

**Finally. This is the chapter I've been looking forward to since I started this book. Also, it's clearly been too long since I let the grisly murder flow. It sat around and fermented into something a little… creepy.**

* * *

**Chapter 24  
** **A Long-Awaited Rematch**

"All this time, and we've got  _nothing_?"

"That is, unfortunately, the case," Priest told the teenaged witch. She grunted in frustration. Ah, the impatience of youth. "The Turk has discovered a way to hide himself most effectively. No matter what method of scrying we attempt, we cannot find him. What of your own methods? Have they been any more successful?"

Queen averted her eyes. "No. I couldn't find any locations of light magic that I didn't already tell you about, and my contacts could not follow him back to his base of operations. Maybe I'd be okay with that if we had proof that he had left Britain—"

"That is most certainly not the case. Once he has a target, I have not known him to abandon his attempts to kill. The protections around wherever it is that you spend most of your time are clearly strong enough to keep you safe, and that undoubtedly has caused him much vexation. Never has he hunted one of us for this long without success." He reconsidered that statement. There was that one story he had heard about the old wizard in Romania, but he had his doubts about its validity. "Not that can be proven, at least."

"So we need to try something else." Queen worried her lip and looked at Menagerie. The elder of the two witches ignored her, perfectly content lying on a sofa and playing with an unnaturally elongated rat. "Unless you have some idea that you're hiding away for a rainy day."

The Grand Wyrm's servant shook her head. "Nope. Except for splanchomancy, it's Priest who does most of the finding. I do the killing."

"Then we have no other choice. I'll have to scry for him."

"We already attempted that," Priest answered in a slow voice. "Do you believe you have more skill in that area?"

"More skill?" She shook her head. "No. But I do have an advantage you don't. We've tried normal scrying, and I know I've used a dark variant. But of the three of us, I'm the only one who can perform a scrying with black magic."

Setting aside for the moment the immense foolishness of her suggestion, he asked, "If you possess a ritual with which you could look for him, why did you not try it already?"

"Because I didn't have it until a couple of weeks ago." She smiled cheerfully at his doubtful expression. "When your letter said that all your leads had dried up, I knew we would need to try something else. I tried tweaking a few spells, but none of them worked, so I hit the books. My mentor saw some rituals when she was younger that weren't exactly what we need but were still pretty close, and she recorded the designs. It wasn't that hard to take them apart and make something new out of the pieces."

"Are you crazy?" Menagerie demanded.

Her smile turned sharp. "Probably. Insanity is in my blood. But this isn't the first time I've had to create a new ritual to accomplish the Baron's demands, and it won't be the first time it works. The Turk used white magic to hide himself, but he's twisting it in a way it's not meant to be used. Black magic will be just as strong, and since it's supposed to do what I'm using it for, it should break through. Trust me, I'll find him."

"And in doing so, you will accomplish his task for him. It is May," he reminded her. "We have passed the vernal equinox and quickly approach the summer solstice. The Light Powers, the Storm Hunter among them, are growing into their full strength while our own Powers are fading to their weakest point. And you wish to tap into the Gatekeeper's powers at a time like this? It is almost guaranteed that your ritual will rebound upon you."

"You don't need to worry about that."

"What Priest is saying is that you do this, you're dead," Menagerie said in her usual blunt manner. "The rebound will kill you, and the last… what, eight months we spent here will have been a complete and total waste of our time."

Queen just laughed. "Don't you think I know about the dangers of rebound? I have an idea for how to get around it. So no, don't worry. I know what I'm doing, at least as much as anyone trying a new ritual ever does. Give me a few minutes to get ready, and then we'll find that bloody Turk and carve him up like he deserves."

Still chuckling, Queen walked away. A silent moment passed before Menagerie scoffed and picked her creature up again. "Hopefully she'll tell us where he is before she gets blown up," his partner said. "And she was one of the less incompetent baby blacks we've run into, too. Fucking shame. I was almost starting to like her."

Several minutes passed before Queen returned. She was naked now, purple and black paint the only thing covering her body while her face was painted to resemble a skull. In her left hand she carried a roll of leather, and in her right was a long chain that trailed behind her until it wrapped around the wrists of the two equally naked men who followed her. They walked along docilely, eyes glassy from some curse or another, and both of them were gagged.

She dropped the chain on the ground and walked away from her captives to the table, where she unrolled the leather pack to display its contents. First she pulled out a long dagger made of what he could only presume was bone and a sheet of parchment. "Rituals aren't really as hard as most people make them out to be," she said, examining the available space and pulling out a stick of chalk as well. "Well, Voodoo isn't. I don't know a whole lot about other Powers' rituals. Most of the real work is in the preparation. Making a Death Focus, something that thankfully only has to be done once. Designing or familiarizing yourself with the design. Finding people to sacrifice and any supplemental components you might want. Stuff like that, and even that's just time-consuming, not really difficult."

While she was working, she drew a circle on the concrete floor and then what looked like a heavily stylized cross within it. Six trios of runes came next, placed equidistantly just inside the circle. Stepping away, she drew a second, smaller circle that met the first at a single point right next to one of those sets. Four more pairs of runes went in this one, a design resembling a coffin in its center.

"Of course, whenever you have a brand-new ritual that you're trying for the first time, it helps if you weight the deck in your favor. You take off anything that might cause a problem, which a lot of times includes your clothes. You purify yourself and then get dolled up in your patron's colors. You make sure your victims are appropriate for the task at hand. That one normally isn't important at all – I've rarely come across a ritual that demands a particular type of person, and my mentor's books contain over a hundred well-researched rituals – but when you're making something new, it never hurts to be a little picky with your kills." She cocked her head. "And to be completely honest, I don't even know that the runes and veves and everything are necessary, either. You could probably just kill someone with a Death Focus and be done with it. That said, the Baron is incredibly egotistical, so I doubt he'd be willing to part with any of his power unless I jump through all these hoops. I certainly wouldn't try doing a ritual without them. I know what he's like when he's angry. It's not pretty."

"You do not wish to anger him, yet you use an intimate title and call him egotistical." He referred to the Powers as he did because those were titles known not to call their attention upon the speaker. By using the name she had, particularly as her patron Power, she had all but ensured that the Gatekeeper had heard her unflattering description.

She gave him a flat look. "He's seen what's in my head. He knows what I think about him. It took me a while to realize it, but if he hasn't killed me for my insolence yet, he probably won't unless I seriously cross a line." She knelt down and placed the tip of the dagger against the two circles one by one, muttering something each time. Standing, she added, "Besides, he was venerated by just about every culture ever at one point or another, even if he wasn't strictly worshiped. He's arguably the strongest of the Powers since every human ever has to pass through his realm. He has an ego, no question about that, but I never said it wasn't justified."

Setting her tools aside, she pulled a pair of cigars out of another of her pack's many pockets and lit them, and then filled a glass with liquor. She glanced at something within with a tilt of her head before pulling nine smooth white circles out of yet another pocket. "Why not?" Queen murmured to herself. She placed them on top of the circles, each one next to one of the collections of runes with one shared between the two circles. With a second look over the design, she nodded in approval.

She returned to her intended victims and removed the chains from the skinny man first. He blinked in confusion and then tried to run, but a wave of her hand lifted him into the air. Queen positioned him above the cross in the larger circle before, with a glance at the smaller, spun him around so his head was next to the intersection of the two circles rather than on the other side. She laid him gently on the ground and tapped his shoulders and hips. Each one made an incredibly loud  _crack_  at her touch, and the man screamed helplessly into the gag. A nasty smile was her only response.

The fat man did not try to escape as the first one had. Instead, he stared at Queen in disbelief as she picked him up and moved him inside the smaller circle. He moved to kneel before her with his hand braced behind him on his calves. For all that his mind was his own, his body was clearly still under her control. She flicked her wrist to conjure a long metal needle, which shot point first through one of his hands and the leg below to  _tink_  sharply against the concrete. He, too, yelled in agony, and again when she pinned the other hand and leg together.

"Oh, poor little Jacob," she said in a sweet sing-song. "You didn't know whose attention you were trying to get, did you? Or didn't your daddy ever teach you not to stick it in crazy?"

That was too much for Menagerie, who gave up trying to hold back her snickers.

"But don't worry," she purred. Dropping to her knees, she wrapped one arm around his neck and slid her body up his own. "You wanted to be someone special to me? You wanted to be inside me on the most important day of my life thus far?" A quick tug removed his gag. "I'll give you what you want."

She caught him in a deep, passionate kiss. Her intended victim stared with wide eyes for a moment, obviously confused about just what was going on, before he relaxed into it. Then he flinched. He leaned backwards as far as he could, trying to shake Queen off without the use of his hands, and screamed into their kiss. Queen followed, her arms pinning him to her chest.

Hands moving to his shoulders, she pushed herself to her feet and gave him a closed-lipped smile. The man tried to say something, but his words were unintelligible due to the mouthful of blood that gushed out. Queen smirked and walked back to the first circle, her throat bulging as she swallowed.

The thin victim she did not kiss. Instead, she straddled his bare hips and sent a taunting wink at the fat one. Picking up the dagger she had left inside, she grabbed her first sacrifice by the chin with her other hand and pinned the side of his face to the floor. "Hold still. It will hurt a lot more if you don't."

Then she carved out his right eye.

Priest had, on a couple of occasions, wondered if a soft-hearted witch like Queen could truly be a servant of the Darkness. He no longer held any doubt that she was one of them.

With his limbs useless, the thin man could not fight his attacker off when she pulled the eye out of its socket and turned his head to harvest its opposite. Both in her left hand, she squeezed until they popped. The resulting jelly was soon smeared over her closed eyelids, gluing them shut. Even without her sight, the young black witch's movements were smooth and confident. The rest of the goop she smeared over his heart in yet another rune. She raised her dagger and plunged it into his chest, then tossed the stained blade out of the circle right before she threw her head back and shrieked.

Golden light shined up from the ground. Blurs leaked out from the concrete, shapeless masses made up of overlapping squares of slightly different shades of yellow, and swarmed the girl. So thick were they that Priest could not make out what was happening. Not that he needed to see to know; he had witnessed a rebounded ritual before. They were never pretty.

The cloud of pixelated comets shrank down, the space they needed to work around growing smaller as they dissolved Queen into nothingness. Or were they? He squinted to see through the glare, and sure enough, she still looked mostly intact even though her sacrifice was disappearing. The blurs poured into her corpse and did not come back out. As quickly as it began, the rebound was over. The only strange thing was Queen's body, wiped clean of paint but otherwise pristine. It almost looked like she was still—

She gasped.

The fat victim's screams of torment began again. Those same gold blurs poured out from his bleeding mouth and tore strips off his flesh. Muscles frayed. Bones crumbled. Viscera melted. Blood smoked. His carcass collapsed in on itself, and this time, the blurs faded from sight only when there was nothing left to consume.

It was Menagerie who managed to find the right words. " _Daaaamn_."

Queen tried to roll onto her side, but she was as weak as a newborn kitten. Or any newborn predator, for that matter, which made the comparison that much more apt. He stepped into the circle and pulled her up, carrying her in his arms back towards the sofa. Menagerie only needed a brief look before she sighed and vacated the spot so Queen could lie down.

"Ugh… That wasn't fun." Cracking one open, she looked up at him. "If I have another stupid idea like that before you leave, do more to talk me out of it."

"At least tell us that was more than just an impressive light show."

Far from angering her, Menagerie's barbed comment just made the younger witch smile. "Oh, I found the cheeky bastard, all right. He was hiding out practically in my backyard."

* * *

"Okay, maybe not my backyard, technically," Jen said once they teleported into a building near the Turk's hiding place, "but  _'the backyard of my cousin's office'_ just doesn't have the same ring to it." She pushed the door open and walked out before taking to the air, Priest and Menagerie joining her on the back of the same ziz-bird Menagerie had ridden on their ill-fated ambush.

Below them, she saw the circular dome of the Wizengamot Chambers.

"We checked this place, though," Menagerie shouted to her. "It's just ruins. Nothing there whatsoever."

"That's what you're supposed to think! It's more complicated than that." Twisting around in midair so she could talk to them, she continued drifting to the desolate castle only a short distance away. "How much do you know about King Arthur and Merlin?

"I've always been more a fan of Morgan le Fay, personally," she continued when neither answered. "An incredible dark witch who almost succeeded in taking over the country? How could I not? Anyway, after Morgan revealed her son, Mordred, to the court of Camelot and that Arthur was his father, Merlin put up a powerful ward that would keep anyone who had taken up dark magic from entering or even seeing into the castle. Pretty much what you would expect from a wizard who was bonded to a phoenix. According to one story, he used a feather from that same phoenix as the anchor for his spell. Of course, that just meant that Morgan and Mordred took to using regular Muggles as their patsies, and after one of those acts started the chain of events that led to Arthur's death, Merlin took it a step farther. He changed the spell, strengthened it even more. Now no one could cross the threshold, not even him; his phoenix was the only way to get in and out."

"Except we did," Priest denied. "We explored the entire area, just as we did all the other locations rich in light magic you told us about. It was empty. No one had been inside in decades, possibly centuries."

"I'm sure you did, but you're thinking of threshold wrong. It's not the physical boundaries of the building. I thought the same thing until just now." She landed in front of the crumbled archway where a portcullis once stood and walked through it into the courtyard beyond. "But that's not what I saw. No, what he did was much more clever. What we're standing in right now? This isn't Camelot. It's just a shell. We can walk through it all we want, and we'll never find the way in."

Menagerie looked at the ruins, looked at her, looked at the ruins again. "Okay. Let's pretend that ritual didn't fry your brain and you're actually making some kind of sense. If we can't get in, how did the Turk? He doesn't have a phoenix, either."

"He got in the same way we will."

Pulling her dagger out of an extended pocket, she stabbed it into the air. And it truly was  _into_ ; the end faded from sight, and halfway through the motion, the blade caught on something. She pulled against the resistance, moving up and over. A loud whistling, like air escaping a balloon, filled the courtyard, and ripples spread through the space as though it were the surface of a pond. Where her blade slid through, the world twisted and flapped, revealing a hidden castle that was exactly the same as and yet totally different than the one in which they stood. "Get a move on!" she yelled to her allies. "I don't know how long this will stay open once I pull the dagger out!"

The rent air moved like a curtain when first Priest and then Menagerie pushed the opening wider so they could fit through, and Jen followed right on their heels. Once her Death Focus was no longer disturbing the ward, the gap in time and space sealed itself up.

"White and black magic are both stronger than light and dark magic," she continued as though she had not just pulled off the impossible. "It's what happens when one of them is powered by a god. The Turk probably just cut a hole in the ward and walked right in. He was sure we wouldn't be able to follow him because dark magic can't be used to scry inside the ward, and none of us has magic that could be used to destroy that directly. One of us would have to be an avatar of the Unseelie Queen to get in, or a soul mage who mimicked those magics." She twirled the dagger in her hands. The only reason this worked at all was because it was, as the Baron himself told her, black magic solidified. "He made a faulty assumption, and now it's going to cost him."

Of course, that was not the sole reason they had not found the hidden side of Camelot before. If Merlin really did use a phoenix feather as the anchor, that meant that it was a tiny fragment of Enoch himself that was powering the ward. Not enough that it became white magic in itself, but it was still stronger than normal dark magic. Black magic probably was the only way they ever would have discovered this place.

Though now that she thought about it, she really did need to check to see if her dagger could slice through  _any_  ward, or if the ward in question had to be tied to a phoenix feather or made of light magic for it to work. It would be nice if she had a back door wherever she wanted to go, but she doubted her life would be that convenient. Her dagger had unusual powers, but still limited. Killing ghosts, cutting open pseudo–white magic wards; not the kinds of talents she would need very often. Handy talents for Death's killers all the same, but if she were not going to be one of those killers, she had even less use for them.

Menagerie's skin twisted unnaturally as not a few but nearly all her monsters peeled off her body. "You know what he smells like! Sniff him out!"

The creatures raced out of sight, and barely a minute passed before they heard loud roars that were quickly cut off. In hindsight, it made perfect sense, Jen decided as they ran deeper into the castle towards the center room. Why wouldn't he set himself up in the throne room?

They pushed the partly open door all the way and gazed at their foe. "I don't know how you found the way in here," the Turk told them from the chair at the end of the room. Not a throne, though; that was pushed off to one side. Just an unremarkable recliner, something he could have found in any Muggle furniture store. He pushed himself to his feet and walked past the butchered bodies of Menagerie's beasties. Along the way, he pulled a gleaming broadsword out of one of them. "But I don't think it matters, does it? All that matters is that not all of us will walk out of here alive. We have delayed the end long enough. Let's finish this."

The three black mages spread out. While Menagerie and Jen both went to the sides, Priest stepped forwards and drew his scimitar. She was a complete novice when it came to swords, but she still could not help but notice that his blade was rather less impressive than the Turk's. That one looked like it was a ceremonial piece even though it was clearly still dangerous. Red and yellow gold twisted around each other to form the cross guard, and that the blade shone like polished silver was proof of its magical origin.

Wait….

She looked again at the sword, a quiet dread filling her. Magic sword. In Camelot. One that gleamed like polished silver, or perhaps more appropriately, like sunshine off a still lake. Most of the stories she had heard said that sword had been thrown back into the waters from whence it came, but then again, those stories were the Muggle versions that were at best half-right. And the wizarding legends focused on Merlin, not Arthur, regarding the latter as a minor character.

If this was the sword she was thinking of, she should just be glad the Turk did not also wear the scabbard. This fight would be hard enough as it was.

She hurled green death at their foe, but the Killing Curse vanished as soon as it touched Excalibur's keen edge. The Turk whipped it around again and slammed it into Priest's sword, and Jen did not need to hear the dull crunch that blow made to know that this would not end well. The walls fell apart at her gesture, and the stones melted and reformed into duplicates of her ally's weapon. He was going to need them.

Priest's sword appeared to be of good quality, but against a sword that was reputed to cleave iron as though it were wood, that was not enough. The fourth strike shattered the scimitar. She flung several of her creations point-first at the two men; while they both dodged, Priest thankfully caught on and snatched one off the ground.

Menagerie sent more of her monsters into the fray, and Jen fired off spell after spell. They had to distract him so Priest could finish him off, but he was not making that easy. Excalibur sliced through her curses almost negligently, lending credence to the theories that it was indeed of faerie make, and even Menagerie's strongest creatures were quickly hacked to pieces or fried from the blasts of lightning that leapt from the Turk's fingers. To further complicate matters, the swords she had created for Priest were not holding up as well as the real thing, only withstanding one or at best two hits before they fell apart and returned to being rock. The only good thing about that was that Priest was taking advantage of the changing battlefield and kicking those chunks of stone at the Turk to distract the white mage for all the good it was doing. This fight was becoming one of finesse rather than strength: the Turk needed to protect himself from all sides and watch his footing while Priest needed to avoid the Turk's strikes rather than parry them and yet stay close enough that their enemy was forced to defend himself with his sword instead of calling upon his magic.

Unfortunately, even with the three-to-one advantage, it was the Turk who was slowly winning. Menagerie was running out of useful monsters – even now, she was releasing a flock of fanged sparrows to distract the white wizard – and when those were gone, she would be forced to rely on her wand. Jen had given up on direct spells after her self-designed corruption curse once again failed to reach its target and was trying to bludgeon him with blocks of stone and metal, but what did not get sliced through was deflected. Either way, she was doing little to influence the fight other than creating more debris.

What they needed was something that could survive a protracted battle against Excalibur, but there was only one sword that had ever achieved that distinction, and it was certainly not within reach.

Then again, Excalibur was said to be returned to the fae realms, and that was obviously a lie. Maybe, just maybe….

Ripping more stones from the walls and ceiling, she turned them into swords and scattered them across the battlefield. Running closer to Menagerie, who had now drawn her wand and was trying to succeed where she had failed, she whispered, "Keep him busy. I'm going to look for something."

Menagerie stared at her in disbelief. "This isn't the time to sight-see!"

"We keep going like this, we'll all die. There might be something to help that's still here. Five minutes tops."

She did not wait for permission before she ran out the door and down the hallway they had not explored. A ball of light appeared above her palm and zipped away ahead of her. She smiled. Apparently it was within reach, after all.

Several twists and turns took her deeper into the castle and down a flight stairs towards the dungeons. The light turned again, this time soaring into the wall, and Jen did not hesitate before ripping the stones from their places. The stones fell to reveal that it was not truly a wall; someone, likely Merlin himself or perhaps an apprentice, had just made it look like a wall so no one would find their way into the room hidden behind. Judging by the small size of the space and the chains dangling from the walls, this was once a prison cell, perhaps for people who had not earned the privilege of torture but still needed to be educated on the reasons not to violate the king's laws. That was not what she cared about, though. No, her eyes were on the room's centerpiece: a majestic broadsword, its blood-red blade sunk halfway into a large chunk of stone. Chains stretched from the rings on the walls to wrap around its silver hilt and down the blade to attach to the floor, and several pendants hung from different links. And there in the middle was a single scarlet feather.

A flick of her fingers sent a blood-boiling curse at the mass of chains, and she was not surprised in the slightest when the bindings flared with gold light. Unless there were two phoenix feathers lying around this place, which honestly was not outside the realm of possibility, this was not only a final defense against anyone trying to take the sword but also the foundation of the ward. There was no way she was going to touch that with her bare skin.

It also meant she had the key to get past it.

Spinning her dagger in her hand, she stabbed the feather. Once more the light flared, and this time it was accompanied by a bird's shriek. Not a phoenix's normal song, but instead the sound she would expect should it be boiled alive. Her dagger shook wildly in her hands, her strength fighting against the ward's. Her blade skittered off the feather with a loud crack.

The feather crumbled into dust, and the chains fell to the ground.

She slid the sword out and flew back the way she came. This would all be for nothing if her allies were already dead. To her great joy, they were not, though Menagerie's left arm, blistered and bleeding, hung lifelessly at her side. Even more rubble covered the floor, and as expected, Priest's remaining weapons were dwindling rapidly. Another scimitar shattered as she watched; Menagerie summoned several pieces and transfigured them into a sword again, but this was a poor reproduction that would probably hinder Priest more than help him.

"Priest! Catch!"

She flung the sword as best she could towards the two combatants. Only the Turk could see what she was doing, but Priest tossed his blade at the Turk's face and wheeled around. With how she had thrown it, there was no way that he could catch in his hands. Instead, he jumped forwards to make sure it stabbed him in the chest, then spun around once again to block Excalibur with the hilt.

Not what she would have thought to do, but then again, she was neither invulnerable nor knowledgeable about sword fighting. She would leave that to the expert.

Priest ripped the crimson blade out of his body and batted away the Turk's stab. Unlike all the other swords, this one did not even chip when crossed with Excalibur, and Jen did not need to see Priest to know that his polite smile was just the slightest bit nasty. Instead of getting in the way there, she ran over to Menagerie. "You're not going to die on us, right?"

The pink-haired witch said something in Greek that Jen was sure she should be glad not to understand. Summoning the remaining swords, she banished them at the Turk once again, but this time they transformed in midair into bubbling tar. The wall of pitch split down the middle before it could reach the white wizard.

So even distracted by Priest, the Turk still could withstand her attacks? "Have you been able to hurt him?" she asked. Menagerie shook her head with a guttural growl. "Do you think Priest is better with a sword than he is?"

This time the elder black witch looked at her. "He wouldn't have survived this long if he wasn't. What are you planning?"

"Oh, I just thought it was time we stopped fighting fair."

Her hands waved through the air. The uplifted arms below. The stylized sheaf of grain above. The image reformed itself into something more accurate, and then she shoved her power into the  _heka_  glyph. A wave of color washed over her and Menagerie, and from there Priest and the Turk. The white mage stared at her for a moment, his magic forcibly reversed and shoved back into his body, but then he had to fend off yet more blows from Priest, who looked quite comfortable being forced to rely on a sword.

She did not know whether this was enough to block off white magic entirely, but at the very least, it would weaken it. That should be enough for them to win.

Menagerie's monsters returned at their mother's call, leaving the Turk facing only Priest. Now the white wizard's inexperience was coming back to bite him, and each swung he made was parried and returned. The few blows that did slip through Priest's defense were shallow and drew no blood from the invulnerable man. When Priest slapped Excalibur away again, the Turk let loose with a blast of lightning, but his magic was indeed weaker than it had once been. That, or perhaps the red sword possessed protections Jen did not know about, but either way, Priest caught the bolt on the edge and then shoved the point through the Turk's hand. A twirl sliced that hand almost completely off. Two more knocked Excalibur to the ground. A fourth swept through the air, and the Turk's body fell to the ground.

A second later and five feet away, so did the Turk's head.

"Stormriders don't come back from the dead, do they?" she asked.

"Not that I have ever seen."

"Good enough for me." A thought shattered the hieroglyph, and their magics returned. Jen took a deep breath and let it out in a hearty sigh. "Finally. This is all over. Thank the Baron."

"It is. We have hunted the Turk for many years, and to see him dead is a wonderful thing." Looking at Excalibur, Priest reached down before Jen could shout a warning. Several seconds passed before the black wizard climbed to his still-shaky feet. "That is a Treasure."

"Unfortunately. I'm pretty sure it's one of the Seelie Queen's if the legends are anything to go by, but I can't prove it."

"A Light Treasure made as a weapon." He looked down at the sword in his hand with newfound respect. "Yet this weapon can fight it on even ground? Extraordinary. A Dark Treasure, I presume? Perhaps crafted by the Unseelie?"

She smirked. Oh, this was so much better than just being a Dark Treasure. "Not at all. I don't know who actually forged it – no one does – but it was given several of its powers by a regular witch, albeit a powerful Dark Lady. Read the inscription."

Priest gave her an uncertain glance before lifting the blade closer to his eyes. "Pwee binnig tinnoo…?"

" _Pwy bynnag tynnu allan cleddyf hwn o garreg hon a einion yn yr un modd Brenin o bob Lloegr_. I never actually learned Welsh, but that line I do know.  _'Whoso pulleth out this sword from this stone and anvil is likewise King of all England'_. She held her hand out, and Priest gave it to her. She took a moment just to admire the gold letters running down its length. "This, dear Priest, is the second most famous sword in British history. Second, in fact, only to the very sword the Turk found. This is the Sword in the Stone. The Kingmaker.

"Clarent."

"The 'Kingmaker', huh?" Menagerie repeated while looking at her with an amused expression. "Maybe calling yourself Queen wasn't all that pretentious, after all."

Priest, on the other hand, did not seem as impressed with Clarent's origin. "That does not explain what you meant when you said that a dark witch gave it its power. That is not possible."

"Clearly it is. It's just incredibly difficult." Conjuring a scabbard around the famous sword, she reluctantly handed it back to Priest. She wanted to keep it, no doubt about that, but it would find far more and better use in his hands. And maybe, just maybe, it was thanks for saving her skin. "You remember what I said about Mordred being the son of King Arthur? Well, he was Arthur's only son and therefore the heir to the throne, but because he was a bastard, the son of Morgan le Fay, and a dark wizard in his own right, many of Arthur's court rejected him, and then Merlin put up that ward that kept us out. The problem with that plan was that Mordred's step-father – well, Morgan's husband – was a king in his own right, and when he died under 'mysterious' circumstances, it left them an abundance of resources with which they could cause Arthur trouble. Worse, since Mordred had magic, even if he was too busy learning how to fight and how to rule as a child to spend much time on spellcasting, many wizards flocked to his banner and offered their aid. Far better in their minds to swear allegiance to the Witch King and serve one of their own than to follow Merlin's lead and bow their heads to a Muggle.

"Morgan and Mordred tried many times to steal Excalibur from Arthur, but the king was too protective of his sword for that to succeed. Instead, through either bribery or trickery, they had a Muggle servant steal Clarent and bring it to them. Clarent had power of its own, even if it wasn't the kind of power they wanted, and so Morgan tapped into that. She and Mordred's swordsmith worked night and day for three days, slowly tapping into the preexisting enchantments. The smith only had a few tasks, but Morgan? So deeply did she submerge herself in her craft that she neither ate nor slept." Jen smiled slightly. "I have a copy of one of her knight's journals, and from the way he recorded it, every servant in the castle tried to get her to take a break, just for a little while, but she heard none of them. Not even Mordred could get through to her, though she would react to him. Starting the second day and every hour on the hour, her son, the king himself, could be found kneeling in the dirt and lifting spoons of broth to her lips. At dawn on the fourth day, she finally finished her enchantments, and taking the red-hot sword from the smithy, she walked up to the stocks and quenched it anew in the heart of Sir Percival, the most pious knight of Camelot. That was the final step she needed to seal her spell, and now all of Clarent's power went into keeping its edge sharp and resisting the blows from Excalibur."

Recalling the next part of the story, her smile faded. "Two lives went into that spell, actually. Morgan was so weakened by the effort that she died a couple of days later, after she insisted Mordred head out to war against Camelot for the final time. She was gone before she could hear that he had fallen in battle, which was probably a mercy. For all that she was a Dark Lady, the journal made it clear that she truly, deeply loved her son. Learning of his death would have destroyed her."

Neither of her allies were likewise moved by the story, even if they were looking at the sword with new respect. "This Morgan," Priest said. "She was a black witch?"

"Not that I can determine. No allegiance to any Power. Just talented and creative."

"And yet she created an enchantment that turned a mortal sword into something strong enough to defend against a Light Treasure. I find that difficult to believe."

She shrugged. It really did not matter in the slightest whether he believed it or not. "Just be careful with it. It was enchanted to stand up to Excalibur, not Light Treasures in general. I don't know how well it will do if you find something similar. I mean, it's fifteen hundred years old and one of a kind. It isn't like you can just walk into a Tesco and get a new one."

The trio walk out of the throne room and made their way back into the sunlight, the ward that once protected Camelot shattered along with Clarent's chains. Looking up into the sky, Jen couldn't help but smile. It truly was a beautiful day.

* * *

**All the way back in chapter 1, I apologized for breaking a promise. No one ever guessed what it was. Well, now you know: in** _**Ascendant** _ **, maybe chapter 7 or 8, I promised that the Arthurian mythos would not play a large role in the rest of the story. It was only later that the idea of a swordfight in Camelot with Excalibur and Clarent came to mind and refused to leave.**

**And yes, this is the real reason Priest uses a sword.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	25. Gifts Without Strings

**Short chapter tonight, but I've had to squeeze out bits of time when I can. I take my final licensing exam in November, so hopefully I'll be able to write more once I no longer need to study so much.**

* * *

**Chapter 25  
** **Gifts without Strings**

Heathrow Airport, where it all began. They even had on outfits similar to what they had worn when they first met. "I can't really say it was fun," Jen told the other black mages, "but I appreciate you two coming over. I don't think things would have gone half as well as they did if you hadn't. The Turk would have torn me to shreds."

"No thanks are necessary—"

"Speak for yourself."

"—but they are graciously accepted," Priest said, ignoring Menagerie's interruption entirely. "It was not as though our time here was especially trying. Of our many colleagues, you are far from the worst."

Jen raised an eyebrow. "Just far from the worst? Who was the best, then?"

"Well, there was that one broad in Tanzania who tried to get Priest to shack up with two of her daughters. At the same time, even." Menagerie looked at her partner. "I never could tell who was more disappointed that you turned that offer down, her or the girls."

"I have not the faintest idea. I was thinking about Strakoi, myself."

"Oh, yeah. It's not often that one of our allies offers to let us stay in his house until the fight's over. And those meat bun things he made were delicious. It's a pity the Turk killed him in the end," she added with a slight frown.

It took a great effort for Jen not to roll her eyes at that, but she managed it in the end. Meat buns? Really? "Hopefully your next target will lead you to someone more hospitable than I was, then. Where are you going, anyway?"

"That is a mystery to us. Perhaps the Sleeper and the Grand Wyrm have chosen to give us some time off before we are handed our next assignment. Once they make their decision, they will send one of us a sign pointing us where we need to go."

"A sign?" she repeated with no little confusion. "Can't they just tell you? The Baron has no problems invading my dreams to tell me what he wants me to know."

Then again, perhaps it was just a difference in how their respective Powers chose to operate. Never would she have thought of Death as being the helpful and upfront kind of patron, but he had never sent her an omen hinting at what he wanted. If he had some task for her to complete, he called her to his realm and just told her. Compared to vague signs that might be coincidence or might be the Powers' meddling, she much preferred his way of doing things.

Priest simply stood like a silent statue, but Menagerie shuddered enough for both of them. After a moment, he spoke again. "It is still strange that you speak so casually of the Gatekeeper. For all that they empower us, you are one of the exceptionally few who speak so happily about conversing with her god. I know that Menagerie and I prefer to keep such interactions to an absolute minimum."

"Priest, the thing," the pink-haired witch reminded him.

"I had not forgotten. I was simply waiting until a more natural turn of the conversation. But since you are so insistent…." Reaching into his suit coat, the African wizard pulled out a brown paper bag, remarkable only in its utter lack of detail. "I believe this is something best left in your care."

"Aww, I'm touched. If I had known we were exchanging gifts, I would have… gotten…." Jen stared into the bag. It was larger on the inside than the outside, which by itself was no great surprise, but what grabbed her attention so thoroughly was the intricately worked silver hilt hiding beneath a few scraps of paper. She blinked, but no, Clarent was still there. "I'm not giving this back, but I am curious. Why not keep it? Even if it doesn't have much power when wielded against anything but Excalibur, I'm sure it would be more dangerous than a regular sword."

Priest and Menagerie exchanged a glance. "Like he said," the younger of the pair explained, "wanting to talk to the Powers is a sign you've gone crazy, and anything that puts them in a chatty mood is something I want nothing to do with."

"I am not so sure that it was any effect of the sword itself, but her words do have merit. I was visited by the Sleeper, who wished to discuss a small number of banalities. It is an experience I would prefer not to repeat."

She raised an eyebrow, but then she shrugged and closed the bag. "Your loss. I don't know what I'd do with it, though. Even if I wanted to stash it next to Excalibur, I don't know that I could."

Since she had needed to destroy the ward that originally protected Camelot when she grabbed Clarent, they had been  _very_  thorough when hiding that Light Treasure anew. Perhaps it would have been wiser to stash the blade where no one would think to look, but three things stopped them. First, it would have been difficult for them to move the sword since none of them could handle it comfortably, even after wrapping it in cloth and leather. Second, it felt appropriate in some way to leave it in Camelot, and both black mages had been fine following her gut feeling. Then again, if they were used to their Powers communicating through signs, perhaps that is where they thought she had gotten that idea. Third, the shadow that had once sat in the normal world had been explored top to bottom, and as a result the idea that the ruins had once been the great castle of Camelot had been 'debunked'. No one would think to look there anew.

Scratch that. Four things stopped them. The last was that there were many hidden nooks and crannies that could fit a sword, and that was before they each threw a number of different spells and protections on its new resting place. If anyone, even one of them who knew what had been cast, could get to it now, he or she  _deserved_  to have it.

She would have been more comfortable melting it down and making belt buckles out of it, but sadly, Treasures of either side were impossible to destroy.

"Really don't care," answered Menagerie. "Hang it on a wall, stab people with it, use it to spread butter, whatever. Just keep it far away from me."

"You were the one who found it," Priest concurred, "and you will not be disadvantaged by its other effects. Do with it whatever you deem prudent."

Shrugging, she slipped the bag on her arm. She was sure there was something she could do with a powerful artifact like this. And if she couldn't, it would still make an excellent talking point in the sitting room. "Thanks. If you need help in the future, send me a letter, I guess?"

Menagerie scoffed. "If we need help from you, we're really in deep shit. But sure, decide you want to play again, and maybe we'll make room for you."

" _Now boarding Turkish Airlines flight 1977, direct service to Istanbul."_

"That would be us." Priest picked up the small suitcase resting beside his feet – Jen did not recall that being among his belongings when they arrived, or that they had carried any luggage, but she supposed they might have just purchased clothes and other belongings following their arrival – and Menagerie did the same with her blue and grey duffle bag. "Should we meet again, Queen, I do hope it will be under better circumstances."

"Try not to get yourself killed. After fighting the Turk, dying to anybody else would just be embarrassing," Menagerie added. And that, honestly, was probably the closest Jen would get to an actual farewell from her.

The pair walked off with not even a wave, and Jen watched them go with no little relief. She was glad to have them out of her country, if only because it meant that the Aurors would eventually calm down. Even if she did have a bit of fun with them along the way.

* * *

"The girl will die."

"Will she? I didn't know that. Why don't you send your precious Turk to stop her…. Oh, wait."

"You dare mock Us? The Turk was not Our only champion."

Laughter, cold and cruel. "No, not your only slave. Just the only one worth anything. If he couldn't succeed, you think your others will? I'm tempted to invite you to try. It would be amusing."

"So Nyarlathotep is not the only one of your ilk who enjoys the suffering of his followers."

"Fool. Send them, then. Let the world watch as one whore slays a god's entire army. We both know your followers are few. I dare you to cast them away. A futile attempt to salve your baseless pride."

Silence.

"No answer, O Great Golden One? I thought not. You do not commit your full strength against a single enemy, not since your worshippers' slaughter at Opis. You learned your lesson then. Better to scurry away with your tail between your legs than lose it all and be forgotten."

"We are not the only god humans forgot. You are ignored just as We are."

"Ignored? Me? Hardly. All men know me. All men fear me. All men stand in awe of me. I have more power now than I ever have."

"And yet the influence of Darkness wanes in the world of mortals."

"Does it? That's not what I see. I see men bowing to their base natures, feeding their desires in innumerable ways. Cruelty, hate, lust, greed. Let humans do as they will, and they will always, always abandon the Light to cavort in the Dark." The voice cackled. "You have lost this war. You lost the moment you agreed to use humans as our warriors. The Pact is signed and sealed, and you gave away your victory and called yourselves wise!"

"Bold words for one who stands in fear of the least of us. Even your servant hides from the gaze of Enoch's ashes, and her land remains in his stiff grip. You think she will have power there? It is not We who are the fool."

"Enoch's ashes have no power of their own. Their pets are his only influence, and in that land? That particular pet has lost the power he once enjoyed. I need only be patient."

"A slip of a girl. You have truly deluded yourself into thinking she can become a conqueror?"

"There is no place for conquerors in the mortal world any longer. That is what you fail to understand even now. No, I think my cunning little whore will do what whores do best. With soft skin and heated looks, she will seduce men into her temple, and they will gladly offer their souls for her favor. The spawn of that union will know nothing beyond what their mother teaches them, and in no time at all, a nation will hand itself over to the Darkness. You wish to know my plan? There it is. Interfere if you think you can, but be warned: the chains forced onto men will break, but those they submit to willingly they will protect with all their might."

"You would count on the fickleness of men to serve your purposes? We have no need to interfere. We shall enjoy watching your plan fail."

"Fail? It is already succeeding."

* * *

The sharp tink of metal against glass grabbed the whole school's attention, and they all looked over at the staff table to see Headmistress Marchbanks standing up. "Congratulations on making in through the last two weeks of exams," she told them, "especially our fifth- and seventh-years who survived their OWLs and NEWTs, challenging though I know it was."

"You can say that again," Ginny heard Theresa say from her other side. She nodded in agreement; she had for a while thought studying for the Potions OWL was literally going to be the death of her.

"As the staff still needs to score the rest of the exams, we're going to try to have some peace and quiet in the castle tomorrow. Yes, that means you will have your normal post-exam weekend to Edinburgh." Applause met her comment, more for the fact that she was not going to lock them away inside out of fear that the attack from the previous year would be repeated. "That is not to say that you do not need to be careful," she continued, crushing any such hopes. "This trip will be shorter than the others, from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon. We do not want an encore of last year's tragedy. Have fun with your friends, decompress, but do not wander off by yourselves. Stay in groups, preferably around adult wizards and witches. Prefects, I know you want to have fun, too, but do your best to keep an eye on your fellow students." The old woman looked around the room with hawk-like eyes. "Remember. Two o'clock. Do not test me on this."

That sucked all the excitement out of the room, and a few minutes later everyone left the Great Hall on the way to their common rooms. Ginny was halfway up a flight of stairs before she turned to look at her friends, an expression of exasperation plastered onto her face. "I forgot something downstairs. Go on to the common room. I'll be there in just a minute."

The other fifth-years believed her lie, and she ran down again. Past the Great Hall, though, and towards the dungeons. Thankfully, she did not have to go far into the Slytherins' territory to find the person she needed to see. Malfoy sent her a superior smirk. "Thought you'd want to talk after that bit of news."

"Don't you ever get tired of being smug?"

"Not really, no."

She shot him a frustrated glare. "Fine. But what am I going to do? Danny and I talked about going somewhere nicer for an early dinner, and I just know he's going to ask me to be his girlfriend. He just needs a push. Some random pub isn't romantic enough to do that."

"So you want something romantic in short order. Do I look like a genie that will just snap his fingers and grant your every wish?" Despite his tone, his grin told her he had exactly what she needed. He reached into his bag and rummaged around in it before pulling out a cream-colored card. "How does lunch at the Fox Rampant sound?"

It wasn't the nicest place he could have chosen, but it was a definite cut above casual dining. She took the card from him only to find that the reservation already had her name written on in it fancy penmanship. "How?" she finally asked. "Every time I've needed something, you seem to have an answer for it already. How do you know what I need before I do?"

"You're a Gryffindor. You're easy to predict." He chuckled at his barb for only a moment before shrugging. "It was obvious you'd want to have a pleasant meal with Potter at an expensive restaurant while you can still hide all this from your brothers, so I set up two different dinner reservations and one for lunch just in case. It doesn't cost anything to reserve a table, and I'll cancel the others so they know not to expect you. Something like this really isn't that much of a hassle to set up, and your incredulous expression whenever I whip the answer out of my pocket makes what I do have to deal with worth it."

"I knew you were just doing this to make fun of me." His laughter at that was clean and honest, and it reminded her of their first few interactions. "I'm sorry, Malfoy."

"Sorry?" He stared at her in confusion. He also looked wary, and she cursed in her head for inflaming what had quickly become obvious as his Slytherin paranoia. "What are you sorry about?"

"When I agreed to this plan, I was sure that this was all just a game, you picking on me even if you said you wanted to help me. I didn't believe you. Even after you bought me dresses and gave me money for jewelry and makeup and everything else, I still doubted you. I don't agree with why you decided to help me," she admitted, "but you went out of your way to help me when you didn't have to, and not in some little way, either. I… I could almost think of you as a friend."

He immediately shook his head. "We aren't friends. We're allies pursuing a common goal."

 _Which is Slytherin-ese for friends_ , she thought to herself. After spending time with him over this last year, she knew that he would have no problems making friends if he would just stop putting up this aloof act all the time. Well, and if he hadn't been such an arrogant twat when he was younger and made everyone hate him. That didn't help matters.

"Fine, allies. Either way, you've helped me, and I don't know that I've ever thanked you for it." She looked him in the eyes. "Thank you. I don't know if…. I never would have been able to do this if it weren't for you. Thank you, Malfoy. Thank you so much."

He looked away and cleared his throat. "You're very welcome, Weasley. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do than loiter around with a lovestruck Gryffindor in a hallway. Like watching a potion spill dry."

She sighed and shook her head. If he couldn't even handle someone thanking him without getting uncomfortable, she wondered how he would have reacted had she hugged him like she thought about doing. She still might do that, actually, provided this date turned out how she hoped it would. Giving him one last smile, she turned around and hurried up to her dorm. She had lots to do before morning came.

Running off like that meant she missed the conflicted expression that sat on Malfoy's face, one that eventually turned into determination. He, too, turned around and started walking to his dorm. "You're very welcome indeed."

* * *

Danny tried his best not to tug and scratch where the nice robes he wore were itching. His mum had taught him how to transfigure his normal clothes into semi-formal robes the previous year, which he thought was a waste of time. Then, this summer his dad had taught him the same thing, which… well, he still thought it was a waste of time, but that both his parents inpendently thought it something worth learning made him wonder. Now that he was off on an impromptu date in a nicer restaurant with Ginny and had to make due with his wand and what he threw on for a casual day wandering around town, he realized they  _might_ have known what they were talking about.

Maybe.

Not that he was ever going to tell them that.

Ginny handed a card to the maitre d' or whatever he was called when the restaurant wasn't French, and the man barely glanced at it before waving a straw-haired waiter toward them. Looking at the other diners, he knew that they were underdressed – him more than her, admittedly, but she had not transfigured hers at the last minute – but thankfully the adults there ignored them as they walked to a table in the middle of the room. The young waiter pulled out a seat for Ginny, and then he lit the lone white candle on the center of the table before walking off.

"Thank you for agreeing to this," Ginny said after a long, awkward moment. "I know it isn't how things are done  _normally_ , but…."

"No, I get it. And you're right. We might be doing all this backwards, but I like how it's turning out." The beautiful girl smiled shyly at him, her face lighting up in the flickering candlelight. He laughed. "There have been days that I've almost thought you were going to ask me to be your boyfriend and not the other way around. That or do something public like kiss me in the middle of the common room."

Ginny blushed brightly.

"But there are some things that should be done the traditional way." The candle flared with his words. "Ginny, will you be my girlfr—"

An earth-shattering roar slammed into him with all the force of an angry mountain troll.

He blinked a couple of times, trying to remember where he was and what just happened. It didn't help that his ears were ringing the same way they had the previous year, which he now knew meant for sure that his eardrums had ruptured once again. He groaned when he tried to sit up, his throat vibrating but the actual sound of his voice missing. Turning his head to the side, he found the rest of the people in the restaurant not paying any attention to… was it an explosion? It had to be. And he thought he was deaf right now!

Wait. Was anybody but him moving?

He looked over to find Ginny also laying on the ground, though she was holding her ears and trying not to retch. Movement from the crowd, finally, and he glanced up.

No, that wasn't motion. It was just the illusion fading away.

He and Ginny were the only living customers. Most of the tables were empty, but those that were not held only corpses. Men and women with their throats cut or holes through their chests or just slumped lifelessly in their chairs. Before he could freak out too much about being surrounded by blood-soaked tablecloths and dead bodies, something hit him yet again and flipped him over onto his back.

The blond waiter from before stood over him, dressed in a black robe and sneering nastily, as were several of the man's friends. But what really took the prize was the witch at the front of the group, one with messy black hair and purple eyes. Bellatrix Lestrange gave him an evil smirk.

Then all he knew was pain.

* * *

**So now Malfoy's plan should be clear. Make Ginny depend on him for all her romantic needs until she goes along with whatever he suggests, and then he knows where Ginny and, more importantly, Danny are going to be on a given day and time. Off goes that information to Auntie Bellatrix, and, well, this happens. I don't think he expected her to slaughter everyone in the building, but that's what you get when you involve Bellatrix in anything.**

**It also avoids what was his biggest weakness in canon. No, the reason Malfoy couldn't kill Dumbledore wasn't because he was actually a good boy in a bad situation. He just couldn't bring himself to do the deed directly. Much like the poisoned mead (which was actually a rather good plan and could have succeeded were it not for Slughorn being lazy and a mite gluttonous) and the cursed necklace, this lets him avoid getting his hands dirty.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	26. Hope's Despair

**I'm surprised by very glad that so many of you enjoyed Death and Marduk's conversation. Death is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters to write, just because he is so funny (from a safe minimum distance, of course). Thankfully, he still has some big scenes coming up, including one that I've been waiting on for at least a year now.**

**On a related note, there were supposed to be two or three more chapters after this, including some honestly awesome scenes that would have made for a great climax even after the Camelot fight, but I unfortunately outsmarted** _**myself** _ **with Draco and Bellatrix's plan. (Curse her for being crazy but not stupid!) That means my notes had to be rapidly rearranged, and as a result, this is the last chapter of** _**Coronation of the Black Queen** _ **.**

**Now that it's posted, though, I can start work on the fourth and final installment in this series.** _**The Black Queen's War** _ **will begin in the next few weeks.**

* * *

**Chapter 26  
** **Hope's Despair**

Hermione stood with the rest of the prefects who had stuffed themselves into Marchbanks's office. "We have a problem. Two students did not return from Edinburgh with the rest of you." Giving them a gimlet eye, the headmistress demanded, "Do any of you know where Daniel Potter and Ginevra Weasley are?"

_Merlin's beard, Ginny, what did you do?_

"Anyone?"

"They went off on a date." Ron's eyes shot to her in disbelief – she didn't know how the younger girl pulled it off, but somehow Ginny had kept her brothers in the dark about her budding relationship with Danny – and he was soon emulated by the rest of the room. "She knew she had to be back by two, though. I told her several times. She should have remembered."

"Unless the date went so well she stopped thinking with her head," muttered Black with a knowing smirk.

At the same time, Marchbanks asked, "Did she say where she was going?"

Mastering the urge to snap back at the rude Ravenclaw, she focused on the headmistress's question. "She didn't say where she was going, but I know she put quite a bit of effort into it." Hermione thought back to the conversation they had just that morning. "She did mention a reservation, so probably one of the nicer restaurants in the area. It's only three-thirty; it's entirely possible that they lost track of time."

"If they are old enough to be out on their own, they're old enough to be back when they're supposed to be back," Torquill bit out. "We're going to Edinburgh to find Potter and Weasley. You'll be in groups of three. Michaels, take Goldstein and Parkinson. Abbot, Macmillan, Malfoy…."

Ten minutes later found Hermione, Ron, and a very disgruntled Black walking down Horne Street. Hermione could only guess that Torquill put the Dark witch with them because she was officially Danny's half-sister and  _should_  have some familial love for him, but what it really meant was it was her and Ron looking for their friend while Black tagged along doing nothing.

"You're sure you haven't seen him?" Ron asked the clerk at the confectionery. Despite knowing that Ginny and Danny were headed to a restaurant, the Head Boy had made a very good point that they did not know that the pair were still there. They had more than enough groups to look at all the restaurants in the area, and it would be a waste if they only looked there and missed the lovebirds who were just across the street.

"You think I wouldn't know Danny Potter if he walked in my store?" the young man behind the counter demanded. "No, I haven't seen him."

"That was a waste," Black said once they were outside again. "It will be just our luck if they made their way back to the castle while we are all out here searching for him."

"Do you have anything constructive to say?!" Hermione spat out, whirling around to glare at the other teen. "No? Then  _be quiet_  and let us work. You'd look for your friends if one of them went missing, wouldn't you?"

Black blinked languidly and gave her a thin, nasty smile. She then reached up to her lips and mimed turning a key. It was probably the best they were going to get from her.

A scream rang out, and she and Ron immediately started running in that direction, the worst possibilities running through their heads. Ahead of them sat a small brick building, a sign depicting an upright fox hanging above the door. Several other prefects ran inside, so it was a good guess that was where they needed to go. The people who had barged in ahead of them were already moving to the edges of the room, which gave Hermione a clear, terrifying look at what waited for them.

"Ginny!" Ron shouted, running up to where his little sister was spread-eagle but skidding to a stop before he touched the pool of blood that surrounded her. "No. Ginny…."

She looked away from the sight, but all that did was show her the rest of the bodies shoved onto booths and tables. "I think I'm gonna be sick," she muttered almost to herself.

"Potter isn't here," Malfoy said, looking bored with everything going on the way only an awful person like him could. "Do you think there's a back door somewhere? The kitchens, maybe?"

Despite the source, that was as good an excuse to get away from… from all this as there was. She walked forward slowly so she could pull Ron away from Ginny's side. He resisted at first, but after a couple of seconds all his strength left him, and he let himself be led away. The kitchens were free of any of the carnage from the dining area, something Hermione was grateful for more than she could put into words. There was a door at the very back of the room, and the prefects filed out one by one into an alleyway that ran behind the stores on this side of the street. "Nobody would have seen anything if whoever did this went out this way," Anthony Goldstein pointed out unnecessarily.

"All the Death Eaters would have to do is walk until they were out of the wards," Hannah Abbot agreed tearfully, because who else would have done this besides the Death Eaters? Ron pulled Hermione close, putting aside his own sorrow to offer what comfort there was in such a terrible situation.

The Death Eaters had Danny. The Death Eaters had  _Danny_ , and there was nothing they could do about it!

The group of prefects walked back into the restaurant, everyone silent as they grappled with the obvious implications. That silence was broken when Parkinson of all people shrieked, "What are you doing!"

Black, who apparently had not followed them, did not look up. Instead, she stayed crouched where she was in the pool of Ginny's blood. "If you know what you're looking at," she finally answered, "a body can tell you a great many things."

"That's my sister, you freak!"

"What are you talking about?" Daye asked, ignoring Ron's outburst but still angry at the obvious disrespect Black was showing.

Black beckoned them closer with a bloodstained hand. "Most Death Eaters murder with the Killing Curse," she said once they were far too close to Ginny for anyone's comfort. "That she bled to death means the one who did this is on a much shorter list. Furthermore, he knew what he was doing. These incisions"—she pointed at the cuts on Ginny's sleeves, almost at her shoulders—"are right over the brachial artery. Same here." Now she pointed to the girl's skirt. "Femoral artery. One cut each, through clothes. That indicates someone who was familiar with killing in this way. She was also cut here." Pulling up Ginny's shirt, they all saw a long cut going across her waist. "You can tell from the lack of pooled blood that this was postmortem. The killer wanted to make sure she was dead before he left, and if she weren't dead by then, this would have done her in.

"Now look at the way she's arranged. If she were just cut, she would have curled up to try to staunch the flow, but she's not. She was held down by a jinx and  _then_  cut; if it had been the other way around, there would have been blood smeared on the floor. It also lets us know that she wasn't tortured." Black thought about that for a second. "Well, not physically, anyway. Mentally is a different story entirely."

"How the hell can you tell that?" one of the seventh-years demanded.

"No marks, either on her clothes or on her skin. The Cruciatus could do the same, but it causes its victims to seize violently. With her being held down like this, her muscles would have ripped themselves off her bones or even broken the smaller bones. There's no sign of that."

"How long?" Torquill asked, her face green. "How long would it have taken for her to die?"

Humming thoughtfully, Black tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. She didn't seem to notice the scarlet smear it left on her face. "With all four major arteries severed? A couple of minutes, probably. Enough to terrify her, but not enough for her to truly suffer. And that's interesting all by itself. The short list of Death Eaters I mentioned? All of them like to play with their victims. That didn't happen here. They were on the clock, but no one heard any screams, so it can't have been because of that. Add in the rest of the corpses, all of whom look to have been dead for longer than her and were killed more carelessly? Only one explanation presents itself."

"Just get to the point," Hermione almost shouted. Her nerves were frayed to the breaking point, and Black was taking far, far too much sick enjoyment out of all this.

The black sheep of the Potters raised one eyebrow. "Very well. The point is we need to find out who knew Weasley and Potter were coming here for lunch, because whoever that is sold them out. This was a trap. That's why the Death Eaters moved quickly; they had been here for a while already, and the longer they stayed, the greater the chances they would be found."

Everyone started muttering amongst themselves at that bold declaration, and soon eyes fell on the Slytherins in the group before just as quickly moving on. Would the Slytherins have reason to tell the Death Eaters where Danny was? Absolutely, but there was no way Ginny would have told any of them about her plans. She hadn't even given Hermione the details.

Daye walked over and conjured a handkerchief for Black to wipe her hands and face clean. "You said there only a few people who would act like this," Hermione could barely hear him say. "Who?"

"According to my cousin, a few of them liked slicing people up, but with this kind of precision? Only one name springs to mind, someone who worked closely with my mother." Black gave him a cold smile. "And someone who's officially dead, though I know differently. Bartemius Crouch, Jr."

* * *

Jen sat slightly apart from the remaining prefects, waiting for her turn to be interviewed about what they found watching the magical forensics experts go over the crime scene with a fine-toothed comb. They had not been happy that she had muddied up the evidence with her 'amateur sleuthing', but despite their grumbling she was pretty sure they did not expect to have lost any significant clues. It wouldn't be until the formal autopsy that they noticed anything strange, and that they would blame on the Death Eaters, too.

She forced her hand not to stray towards her pocket and the precious organs she had hidden inside. There was no way she was going to pass up a solution to a major problem, and besides, she doubted Weasley would care at this point.

"Miss Black. You're next."

Hiding her smile, she stood and walked over to the short Auror with mousy brown hair. This witch looked very familiar. Sure enough, the core revealed the truth once she was close enough. "Trying to avoid accusations of favoritism?"

"Pretty much," Dora agreed. Once they were out of sight, she stretched back to her usual shape. A scrunching of her nose turned her hair metallic purple. "Ah, better. Now what's this I'm hearing about you mucking up a crime scene?"

"I didn't muck anything up. I was just taking a look to see what could be found." Dora did not seem convinced, so she asked, "If we weren't sure this was Death Eater activity, would it still be the Aurors investigating this, or the Patrol? I wanted to be sure this wasn't just an overeager admirer. I've found out firsthand how bad they can be."

Hopefully that was enough to settle Dora's doubts. She would be far harder to baffle with bullshit than the prefects had been.

Dora led them to a quiet corner before stopping and throwing a silencing charm around them. The gaze she turned on Jen then was pure Auror. "And you've gotten a lot of experience reading bodies lately, haven't you?"

"What?"

"I was on a team recently that was investigating four very strange people," the elder Black said, and Jen felt the bottom of her stomach fall out. She had worried that Dora would connect her and Queen, especially after their mid-air fight, but when nothing came of it, she had let herself relax. She may have been too hasty in that decision. "Three were chasing the fourth and trying very hard to kill him. One of them, interestingly enough, could fly without a broom and used wandless magic. She used the same spell the Unspeakables do to hide her face, too, but it didn't disguise her voice."

"She could fly? I'm jealous." Dora shot her a narrowed-eyed glare, and she sighed. "Dora, I'll be the first to admit that I'm incredibly arrogant, but I'm sure I'm not the  _only_  witch in the history of ever who's mastered wandless magic. And if you knew it the way I do, you'd know that just because she cast some spell that worked like the Unspeakables' doesn't mean that she had to learn it from them. I'm sure I've recreated any number of spells from first principles."

"That is true," her cousin admitted. Jen smiled, and then Dora struck. Her left hand was yanked up, and Dora pulled her sleeve away to display her wrist. "But that witch got her left arm cut off when she went out of her way to save my life, and once I suspected it was you, I took a closer look at it." Dora's fingers tapped on the lily-tipped line where she always cut herself when working black magic. "Word of advice: you have a  _very_ distinctive scar. Two British witches mastering wandless magic I could  _maybe_  believe. I could even let it slide that both had reasons not to let an Auror get killed, since you were careful to tell the other guy that you still needed to live here when you were done. But all that and sharing identical scars? Too many coincidences." Shaking her head, her cousin let go of her arm. "You owe me some answers, Jen."

Lies probably were not going to help her here, were they? "Who else knows?"

"No one yet. I wanted to hear it from you before I got the rest of the Corp involved."

Wonderful. The whole country's worth of Aurors on her tail was exactly what she wanted. Stepping backwards, she slumped against the brick wall. "What do you want to know?" she asked with a resigned sigh. Maybe if she gave Dora what she wanted, she could avoid the worst consequences of hunting down the Turk.

"Everything."

Jen's laugh was humorless. She took a moment to collect herself, and with that time she forced her magic into the rune carved onto her tongue. Her mouth came alive with the sweet taste of honey, and her tongue felt oddly heavy as she spoke. Hopefully this was a sign that the silver tongue she stole from Zabini was working.

"The witch and wizard I was working with are bounty hunters. They picked up a contract to hunt down a serial killer, and apparently Priest had worked with Elsie before I met her, so he intended to bring her on board. Of course, Elsie's been dead for the last few years, but I guess she had told him about me, because I got a letter from him explaining the situation and requesting my assistance." Dora was watching her suspiciously, and she added, "Well, maybe 'request' is the wrong word. It was more or less a demand, payment for a debt or something Elsie owed him and that, as her heir, had been passed down to me.

"At first, I didn't have to do much. A little research here, some scrying there. You know, simple stuff. Around November or so, they told me things weren't going quite as planned and they needed a third wand in the field. We only ran into the Turk, the killer they were hunting, a few times, but…." She shrugged and looked down, looking as pitiful as she could manage. "One of those times was that fight you're talking about, yes."

"And the Buckleys?"

How had she known that would come up? "We found some evidence that he was hiding there, so we went to find out. Everything looked abandoned, so we poked around a little and found a secret passage. I think you know what we found at the end." Dora nodded slowly, but at least her expression was softening somewhat. "I covered the other openings with ice to make sure we wouldn't get ambushed, and they examined the bodies for clues. Priest taught me a couple of things while they did that—"

"Which is why you felt confident examining Weasley's body," Dora interrupted. "I get it. Where are they?"

"They went back to the Continent almost two months ago. I don't know where they are now."

"And where's this Turk? They took him with them?"

Jen looked up and gave her a brittle smile. "Their contract was very clear. Dead or alive."

Dora sighed, but she also relaxed slightly. "Why didn't you tell me about this, Jen? If you were in trouble, I could have gotten you out."

"At first," she said, thinking quickly for a believable excuse, "it was…. It was kind of exciting. Very cloak and dagger. It wasn't until January that it got dangerous, and after that?" She pointed back and forth between them. "I wanted to avoid having this conversation."

Her cousin crossed her arms. "It was exciting. Was fighting Voldemort not  _exciting_  enough for you?"

"It wasn't the same. We weren't chasing down someone with an army at his beck and call. There were three of us, one of him, and we had him on the run. Like I said, it didn't seem that dangerous at first." Scowling, she continued, "And when you didn't say anything, I was sure you hadn't figured it out."

"I planned to bring it up the next weekend, but surprise surprise, you wound up almost getting yourself killed by your stalker. Interrogating you when you could barely string two words together would have been excessive, and your recovery gave me time to cool down. I decided if that was the only time I could even tentatively link you to that group, I'd let things lie for a while, but then you had to go and pull this Miss Sherlock Holmes shite."

Oh. In hindsight, this lie was almost becoming more trouble than it was worth.

"Jen, for such a smart girl, you are an  _idiot_." Dora bopped her none too gently on the head, and then she pulled Jen into a tight hug. On the upside, clearly her enhancement worked. "I don't want to hear about you doing anything this stupid ever again, do you understand? I don't care if you're almost seventeen, you call us and let us handle it. You  _don't_  run off and try to deal with it all by yourself. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were part of Dumbledore's Order with how dumb that was."

"Don't compare me to them," she said, affronted at the comparison even if the irony was vaguely amusing.

"Then don't act like them."

Pulling out of the embrace, Jen looked up and asked the question that had been circling her mind ever since Dora revealed she knew about her illicit activities. "I'm not going to have to spend any time in jail for this, am I?"

"You really should. A week in the Ministry cells for vigilanteism and resisting arrest would make sure you never did this again." Despite Dora's tone, Jen smiled slightly. These were not the words she would expect if Dora was going to go through with that threat. "Don't get too happy," Dora warned her. "Just because I won't tell Scrimgeour doesn't mean I won't tell Sirius and Mum."

She stared at her cousin in confusion. "You…. What?"

"Yep. Since I'm clearly not enough to keep an eye on you, I'll get the rest of the family to help me out." The twinkle in Dora's eyes was savage. "Don't expect to get away with anything this summer, that's all I have to say."

* * *

"I'm so sorry."

Albus winced at the torrent of sobs coming from both women, neither of whom was helped much by their husbands' shocked immobility. It was hard to tell who was more upset; was it Molly, who now had lost not only her firstborn but also the daughter who was her youngest and her favorite, or Lily, whose son did not have the peace of death but was still in the Death Eaters' clutches? With the clarity of distance, he knew which child he pitied more.

Young Danny's suffering had only just begun.

As both families were consumed by their grief, he quietly left the room to give them some privacy. Some might have said that giving them the news together was dangerous, as either woman might have believed that the other's child was hurt less than her own, but this was the beauty and the wonder of the Light. No matter what trials came their way, they had friends and loved ones they could turn to in their time of need.

Regretfully pushing that warm thought to the back of his mind, he instead walked into the second library of the Longbottom's estate that the Order had transformed into a war room. Danny's kidnapping had created other problems that needed to be solved as soon as possible. He had refused to reveal the prophecy to the Order, partly to respect James and Lily's privacy regarding their estranged daughter but even more because thinking that Danny was destined to defeat Tom was more powerful than knowing that he was simply the only one who could do so. Unfortunately, that was going to backfire on him now. In their eyes, the Chosen One had just been kidnapped by the Death Eaters and was all but guaranteed to be murdered in some barbaric fashion. Even without knowing the truth, they would know their hope was gone.

If he were still headmaster of Hogwarts, he could have suppressed this information and spun a tale of secreting Danny away for intense training while in truth arranging for a rescue mission, but that power was no longer his, and by tomorrow morning, the whole world would know the truth and despair.

And people wondered why he believed truth to be a great and terrible burden!

There had to be some way of stopping the Order's panic, and only with his own forces bolstered could he try to change the mind of the public. He was sure he could do something, but it would require a great deal of very delicate work, and still it would give him nothing he could use against Tom! It was not as if he had a backup plan for this….

No. No, no, no. No!

Albus trembled with horror as Sibyl's words rang like a gong in his ears.

'… _another, knowing only Hate and Cruelty, will Fall into darkness… should the Dark Lord not fall at the One's hands, his reign will be forevermore…'_

There was one other. There was  _one other_  child who could possibly triumph over Tom. A girl whose soul was stained black and had strayed so far away from her roots that she would rather claim monsters and bigots as her kin. A girl not so different from Tom himself.

If the words of Fate were to be believed, this fight was no longer one where evil would be fought by good. Evil would instead be fought by another kind of evil, and no matter who fell in the end, goodness and decency would quickly join them in the grave. Their way of life would be replaced by one of blood and hatred, and there was nothing he or the Order could do about it.

Falling into a waiting chair, Albus covered his face with his hands. Alastor had brought up this possibility months ago, but he had not listened. He had rejected this alternative as something he could prevent. After all, he had Danny, had plans for how to train the young man to defeat Tom and defend the Light once he left boyhood behind and truly became a man. All those plans were naught but dust now.

"And thus I am doomed to watch the end of the world."

* * *

Supporting himself on his staff, Voldemort covered his panting breaths as subtly he could. That… had been exquisitely painful, and was not something he was looking forwards to going through once again. If only it were not necessary for his plans.

"I told you not to try that," the Mongolian wizard said, the mocking clear even through the distortion of the translation charm. "Crawl. Walk. Run. In that order."

"I don't have time for that nonsense," Voldemort bit back. "Not unless you have changed your mind about the girl."

"The only Power who doesn't tell his followers what they are is yours. If this girl you hate so much really is a necromancer, the Gatekeeper would have told her long ago." The other wizard took a gulp from his mug. "And if you need proof, look at what she did to you. She bound your soul together so you couldn't use your magic, taking away your greatest weapon and the one you didn't even know you had. She couldn't do that by accident. No, she knew what she was doing."

"And that is why I hurry. If what you say about her magic is true, she cannot perform any rituals for the next few months. She is at her weakest now. She is too dangerous to be left alive."

Nergui shook his head but said nothing. They had already had many arguments about this over the two months in which Voldemort had 'apprenticed' under him, and neither of them was going to budge on their positions. Nergui had harped on the importance of putting aside his grudge and focusing on fighting these white wizards, but this was also a man who wasted his time and power sitting in a tent in the middle of a frozen desert.

No, Voldemort had far better things to do than chase after some old man's nightmares.

The pain receding, he walked out of the tent and cast a spell to keep the cold winds off of him. He had a nation to conquer, after all, and he could not do that from here. Nor could he do it alone, and even with the Death Eaters and the dark creatures that had joined his cause, that was still too few for the decisive victory he desired. He needed an army, one that did not question him, that followed orders, that did not feel fear or pain, and that would not stop. The wind slowed, the swirling frost revealing the hundreds of fighters he had laboriously created.

Yes, these would do beautifully.

* * *

**Oops…?**

**Silently Watches out.**


End file.
